
Book L/ G 

18 



ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, 



AND (INCIDENTALLY) TO 



X9 ° 

YOUNG WOMEN, 



MIDDLE AND HIGHER RANKS OF LIFE, 



IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO 



A YOUTH, A BACHELOR, A LOVER, A HUSBAND. 
A FATHER, A CITIZEN, OR A SUBJECT, 



BY WILLIAM COBBETT. 



LONDON r 
Published by Anne Cobbett, 137, Strand. 

1842. 






4 \<*> 



\~$» 



PBIBCSj PRINTER, jlU. HK 






INTRODUCTION. 



1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure of age 
and experience to warn and instruct youth, and to come to 
the aid of inexperience. When sailors have discovered rocks 
or breakers, and have had the good luck to escape with life 
from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates or barbarians 
as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing of 
buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be ex- 
posed to the danger which they have so narrowly escaped. 
What man of common humanity, having, by good luck, 
missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand, will with- 
hold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without 
which the dangerous spots are not to be approached ? 

2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound 
principles, imbibed in early life, together with the good 
conduct at that age, which must naturally result from such 
opinions and principles ; the great effect which these have 
on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well 
known to every man of common observation. How many 
of us, arrived at only forty years, have to repent ; nay, 
which of us has not to repent, or has not had to repent, 
that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a great stock of 

A 2 



1 V INI ROD! ' I I ON. 

kind which has an immediate effect 
>ur 1 happiness ; that kind of knowledge 

which the cheerfulness and the harmony of 
nes depend ! 

I' i- to communicate a stock of this sort of k 
. particular, that this work is intended ; knowledi 

md tive to education, to many sciences, to tra 

ire, horticulture, law, government, and religion ; 

r latmir, incidentally, to all these; bat, the main 

urnish that sort of knowledge to the young 

which bat few men acquire until they be old, when it coi 

to be useful. 

mmunicate to others the knowledge that 1 
g always been my taste and my delight ; and few, 
who know anything of my progress through life, will be 
to question my fitness for the task. Talk of rocks 
tkera and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever 
from amidst so many as I have ! Thrown (bv mv 
will, indeed) on the wide world at a very early age, 
not more than eleven or twelve years, without money to 
support, without friends to advise, and without book- 
learning to assist me ; passing a few years dependent solelv 
on my own labour for mv subsistence ; then becoming a 
common soldier, and leading a military life, chiefly in 
ign parts, for eight year- ; quitting that life after really, 
for me, high promotion, and with, for me, a large sum of 
• y ; marrying at an early age, going at once to France 
to acquire the French language, thence to America ; 
sing eight vears there, becoming bookseller and author, 
and taking a prominent part in all the important disc 
o( the interesting period from 1 7!>o to 17."!', during which 
there wa c , in that country, a continued >triiL r Lrle carried on 
between the English and the French pari iducting 

myself, in the ever-active part which I took in that 
Struggle, in such a all forth marks of un- 

equivocal approbation from tl rnment at home ; re- 

turning to England in Burning my labours h 

_•. during th ty-nine years, two years of 

imprifl tnment, heavy fines, tl s If-banishment 

the the Atlantic, and a total break 



INTRODUCTION. 



of fortune, so as to be left without a bed to lie on, 
and, during these twenty-nine years of troubles and 
punishments, writing and publishing, every week of my 
life, whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only ex- 
cepted, a periodical paper, containing more or less of 
matter worthy of public attention ; writing and pub- 
lishing, during the same twenty-nine years, a Grammar 
of the French and another of the English language, a 
work on the Economy of the Cottage, a work on Forest 
Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an account of 
America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a 
History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great 
and continued sale, and the last unquestionably the book of 
greatest circulation in the whole world, the Bible only ex- 
cepted ; having, during these same twenty-nine years of 
troubles and embarrassments without number, introduced 
into England the manufacture of Straw-plat ; also several 
valuable trees ; having introduced, during the same twenty- 
nine years, the cultivation of the Corn -plant, so manifestly 
valuable as a source of food ; having, during the same 
period, always (whether in exile or not) sustained a shop of 
some size in London ; having, during the whole of the 
same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten 
persons, in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, 
bookbinders, and others, connected with papers and books ; 
and having, during these twenty-nine years of troubles, 
embarrassments, prisons, fines, and banishments, bred up a 
family of seven children to man's and woman's state. 

5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and ac- 
complished all this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, 
no man is qualified for that task. There may have been 
natural genius : but genius alone, not all the genius in the 
world, could, without something more, have conducted me 
through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I 
have had for deadly and ever watchful foes, a Government 
that has the collecting and distributing of sixty millions of 
pounds in a year, and also every soul who shares in that 
distribution. Until very lately, i have had for the far 
greater part of the time, the' whole of the press as my 
deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pre- 



INTRODUCTION. 



tended that there is another man in the kingdom who has 
so many cordial friends For as to the friends of mini, 
and the great, the friendship is towards the power, the in- 
fluenee ; it is, in fact, towards those tax€8 % of which so many 
thousands are gaping to gel at a share. And, if we could, 
through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should 
find the subscription now going on in Dublin for the pur- 
pose of erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate 
the good recently done, or alleged to be done, to Ireland, 
by the DuKl of Wellington ; we should find that the 
subscribers have the taxes in view ; and that, if the monu- 
ment shall actually be raised, it ought to have selfish 
and not gratitude, engraven on its base. Nearly the same 
may be said with regard to all the praises that we hear be- 
stowed on men in power. The friendship which is felt 
towards me is pure and disinterested ; it is not founded in 
any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever 
profit from professing it ; it is founded on the gratitude 
which they entertain for the good that I have done them ; 
and, of this sort of friendship, and friendship so cordial, no 
man ever possessed a larger portion. 

G. Now, mere genius will not acquire this for a man. 
There must he something more than genius : there must be 
industry : there must be perseverance : there must be, be- 
fore the eyes of the nation, proofs of extraordinary exertion : 
people must say to themselves, " What wise conduct must 
" there have been in the employing of the time of this man ! 
u How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how 
'* little expensive he must have been !" These are the 
things, and not genius, which have caused my labours to be 
so incessant and so successful : and, though I do not aflect 
to believe, that every young man, who shall read this work, 
will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and 
importance, I do pretend, that every young man, who will 
attend to my advice, will become able to perform a ureat 
deal more than men generally do perform, whatever m y be 
his situation in life ; and that he will, too, perform it with 
greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the 
advice, be able to perform the smaller portion. 

7. I hnve had from thousands of young men, and men 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

advanced in years also, letters of thanks for the great bene- 
fit which they have derived from my labours. Some have 
thanked me for my Grammars, some for my Cottage Eco- 
nomy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener ; and, in 
short, for every one of my works have I received letters of 
thanks from numerous persons, of whom I had never heard 
before. In many cases I have been told, that, if the parties 
had had my books to read some years before, the gain to 
them, whether in time or in other things, would have been 
very great. Many, and a great many, have told me that, 
though long at school, and though their parents had paid 
for their being taught English Grammar, or French, they 
had, in a short time, learned more from my books, on those 
subjects, than they had learned, in years from their teachers. 
How many gentlemen have thanked me in the strongest 
terms, for my Woodlands and Gardener, observing (just as 
Lord Bacon had observed in his time) that they had before 
seen no books, on these subjects, that they could under- 
stand! But, I know not of any thing that ever gave me 
more satisfaction than I derived from the visit of a gentle- 
man of fortune, whom I had never heard of before, and 
who, about four years ago, came to thank me in person for 
a complete reformation, which had been worked in his son 
by the reading of my two sermons on drinking and on 
gaming. 

8. I have, therefore done, already, a great deal in this 
way : but, there is still wanting, in a compact form, a body 
of Advice such as that which I now propose to give : and 
in the giving of which I shall divide my matter as follows : 
1. Advice addressed to a Youth ; 2. Advice addressed to a 
Bachelor; 3. Advice addressed to a Lover; 4. To a 
Husband ; 5. To a Father ; 6. To a Citizen or Subject. 

9. Some persons will smile, and others laugh outright, 
at the idea of " Cobbett's giving advice for conducting the 
affairs of love." Yes, but I was once young, and surely I 
may say with the poet, I forget which of them, 

" Though old I am, for ladies' love unfit, 
The power of beauty I remember yet." 

I forget, indeed, the names of the ladies as completely, 



Ylll INTRODUCTION. 

pretty nigh, as I do thai of the poet ; but I remember their 
influence, and of this influence on the conduct and in the 
affairs and on the condition of men, I have, and must have, 
been a witness all my life long. And, when we consider in 
how great a degree the happiness of all the remainder of a 
man's life depends, and always must depend, on his taste 
and judgment in the character of a lover, this may well be 
considered as the most important period of the whole term 
of his existence. 

10. In my address to the Husband, I shall, of course, 
introduce advice relative to the important duties of masters 
and servants; duties of great importance, whether con- 
sidered as affecting families or as affecting the community. 
In my address to the Citizen or Subject, I shall consider 
all the reciprocal duties of the governors and the governed, 
and also the duties which man owes to his neigh boar, it 
would be tedious to attempt to lay down rules for conduct 
exclusively applicable to every distinct calling, profession, 
and condition of life ; but, under the above-described heads, 
will be conveyed every species of advice of which I deem 
the utility to be unquestionable. 

11. I have thus fully described the nature of my little 
work, and, before I enter on the firet letter, I venture to 
express a hope, that its good effects will be felt long after 
its author shall have ceased to exist. 






LETTER I. 



TO A YOUTH. 



12. You are now arrived at that age which the 
law thinks sufficient to make an oath, taken by you, 
valid in a court of law. Let us suppose from feo^ 
teen to nearly twenty , ami, reserving, for a future 
occasion, my remarks on your duty towards parents, 
let me here offer you my advice as to the means 
likely to contribute largely towards making you a 
happy man, useful to all about you, and an honour 
to those from whom you sprang. 

13. Start, I beseech you, with a conviction firmly 
fixed on your mind, that you have no right to live 
in this world; that, being of hale body and sound 
mind, you have no right to any earthly existence, 
without doing ivor~k of some sort or other, unless you 
have ample fortune whereon to live clear of debt; 
and, that even in that case, you have no right to 
breed children to be kept by others, or to be ex- 
posed to the chance of being so kept. Start with 
this conviction thoroughly implanted on your mind. 
To wish to live on the labour of others is, besides 
the folly of it, to contemplate a fraud at the least, 
and, under certain circumstances, to meditate oppres- 
sion and robbery. 

14. I suppose you in the middle rank of life. 



C0BBET1 's \ DVH [Letter 

Happiness ought to be your great object; and it i 
be round only in independence* Turn your back on 
Whitehall ami on Somerset-House; leave ti 
toms and Excise to the feeble and low-minded; 

look not for success to favour, to partiality, to friend- 
ship, or to whal is called interest : write it on your 
lieart , that yon will depend solely on your own merit 
and vonr own exertions. Think not, neiti 
any of those situations where gaudy habili and 

sounding titles poorly disguise from th good 

sense the mortifications and the heart-ache of -la 
Answer me not by saying, that these situations 
u must he tilled by somebody? for, if I were to admit 
the truth of the proposition, which I do not. it would 
remain for you to show that they arc conducive to 
naptrtm — - tko contrary of which has been proved to 
me by the observation of a now pretty long life. 

15. Indeed, reason tells us that it must be thus: 
for that which a man owes to favour or to !ity. 

that same favour or partiality is constantly liable 
take from him. He who lives upon anything except 
his own labour, is incessantly surrounded by rivals \ 
his grand resource is that servility in which be 
always liable to be surpassed. lie is in daily danger 
of being out-bidden ; his very bread depends upon 
caprice; and he lives in a state of uncertainty and 
never-ceasing fear. His is not, indeed, the d< 
life, u Imager and idleness ;" but it is worse ; for it 
is €€ idleness with slavery" the latter being the just 
price of the former. Slaves frequently are well 
and well clad; but slaves dare not speak ; they dare 
not be suspected to think differently from their mas- 
ters : hate his acts as much as they may; be he 
tvrant. be he drunkard, be he fool, or be he all th; 
at once, they must be silent, or, nine til 
ten, affect approbation: though ] ring a tip 

-tud times his knowledge, they must feign a convic- 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 3 

tion of his superior understanding ; though knowing 
that it is they who, in fact, do all that he is paid for 
doing, it is destruction to them to seem as if they 
thought any portion of the service belonged to them ! 
Far from me be the thought, that any youth who 
shall read this page would not rather perish than 
submit to live in a state like this ! Such a state is 
lit only for the refuse of nature ; the halt, the half- 
blind, the unhappy creatures whom nature has 
marked out for degradation. 

16. And how comes it, then, that we see hale and 
even clever youths voluntarily bending their necks 
to this slavery ; nay, pressing forward in eager rival- 
ship to assume the yoke that ought to be insupport- 
able ? The cause, and the only cause, is, that the 
deleterious fashion of the day has created so many 
artificial wants, and has raised the minds of young 
men so much above their real rank and state of life, 
that they look scornfully on the employment, the 
fare, and the dress, that would become them ; and, in 
order to avoid that state in which they might live 
free and happy they become showy slaves. 

17* The great source of independence, the French 
express in a precept of three words, " Vivre depeu" 
which I have always very much admired. 6i To 
live upon little" is the great security against slavery : 
and this precept extends to dress and other things 
besides food and drink. When Doctor Johnson 
wrote his Dictionary, he put in the word pensioner 
thus : " Pensioner — A slave of state" After this 
he himself became a pensioner ! And thus, agree- 
ably to his own definition, he lived and died " a slave 
of state !" What must this man of great genius, 
and of great industry, too, have felt at receiving this 
pension ! Could he be so callous as not to feel a 
pang upon seeing his own name placed before his 
own degrading definition ? And what could induce 

b 2 



4 0OBB1 [Letter 

him to submit to this! His wants, his artificial 
wants, his habit of indulging in the pleasures of the 
table; his disregard of the precept * : Vwredepeu" 
This was the cause; and, be ii observed, that indul- 
gences of this soil, while they tend to make men 
poor and expose ihem to eonnnit mean acts, tend 

also to enfeeble the body, and more especially to 

cloud and to weaken tin 4 mind. 

is. When this celebrated author wrote his Dic- 
tionary, lie had not been debased by luxurious en- 
joyments : the rich and powerful had not caressed 
him into a slave ; his writings then bore the stamp 
of truth and independence: but, having been debased 
by luxury, he who had, while content with plain 
tare, been the strenuous advocate of the rights of 
the people, became a strenuous advocate for taxation 
without representation ; and, in a work under the 
title of u Taxation no Tyranny/ 9 defended, and 
greatly assisted to produce, that unjust, and bloody 
war which finally severed from England that great 
country the United States of America, now the most 
powerful and dangerous rival that this kingdom ever 
had. The statue of Dr. Johnson was the first that 
was put into St. Paui/s Church ! A signal warn- 
ing to us not to look upon monuments in honour of 
the dead as a proof of their virtues ; for here we see 
St. Paui/s C li men holding up to the veneration 
of posterity a man whose own writings, together with 
the records of the pension-list, prove him to have 
been t€ a stare of state " 

ID. Endless are the instances of men of bright 
parts and high spirit having been, by degrees, ren- 
dered powerless and despicable, by their imaginary 
wants. Seldom has there been a man with a fairer 
prospect of accomplishing great tilings, and of ac- 
quiring lasting renown, than Charles Fox : he 
had great talent- of the most popular sort: the 



L] TO A YOUTH. 5 

times were singularly favourable to an exertion of 
them with success ; a large part of the nation ad- 
mired him and were his partizans ; he had,, as to 
the great question between him and his rival (Pitt), 
reason and justice clearly on his side : but he had 
against him his squandering and luxurious habits : 
these made him dependent on the rich part of his 
partizans ; made his wisdom subservient to opulent 
folly or selfishness ; deprived his country of all the 
benefit that it might have derived from his talents ; 
and, finally, sent him to the grave without a single 
sigh from a people, a great part of whom would, in 
his earlier years, have wept at his death as at a 
national calamity. 

20. Extravagance in dress, in the haunting of 
playhouses, in horses, in every thing else, is to be 
avoided, and, in youths and young men, extrava- 
gance in dress particularly. This sort of extrava- 
gance, this waste of money on the decoration of the 
body, arises solely from vanity, and from vanity of 
the most contemptible sort. It arises from the no- 
tion, that all the people in the street, for instance, 
will be looking at you as soon as you walk out ; and 
that they will, in a greater or less degree, think the 
better of you on account of your fine dress. Never 
was notion more false. All the sensible people that 
happen to see you, will think nothing at all about 
you : those who are filled with the same vain 
notion as you are, will perceive your attempt to 
impose on them, and will despise you accordingly : 
rich people will wholly disregard you, and you will 
be envied and hated by those who have the same 
vanity that you have without the means of gratify- 
ing it. Dress should be suited to your rank and 
station ! a surgeon or physician should not dress 
like a carpenter; but there is no reason why a 
tradesman, a merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, 



6 COBBl [Letter 

or why a shopkeeper, or manufacturer, or even a 
merchant ; no A all why any of tb mid 

dress in an expi nsive manner. Ii ike 

appose that they derive any advantage from ex- 
terior decoration. Men are estimated by other n 
according to their capacity and willin * be in 

some way or other Useful; and though; with the 

foolish and vain part of women, fine clothes frequently 

do something, yet the greater part of the sex are 
much too penetrating to draw their conclude 

solely from the outside show of a man : they look 
deeper, and find other criterions whereby to jud 
And; after all,, if the fine clothes obtain you a wife, 
will they bring you, in that wife, frugality r 5 goa 

and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasti 
Natural beauty of person is quite another thing: 
this always has, it always will and must have, some 
weight even with men, and great weight with women. 
But this does not want to be set off by expensi 
clothes. Female eyes are, in such cases, very sharp: 
they can discover beauty though half hidden by 
beard, and even by dirt, and surrounded by ra 
and. take this as a secret worth half a fortune to you, 
that women, however personally vain they may be 
themselves, despise personal vanity in m . 

12 1. Let your dress be as cheap as may be without 
shabbiness : think more about the colour of your shirt 
than about the gloss or texture of your coat : be 
always as clean as your occupation will, Without incon- 
venience, permit ; but never, no. not for one moment, 
believe, that any human being; witli sense in his skull, 
will love or respect you on account of your fine or 
• 1 v clothes. A great misfortune of the present 
day is, that every one is, in his own estimate, ra 
above his real stele of < ry one seems to think 

himself entitled, if not to title and great estate, at 
least to lire without work. This mischievous, this 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 7 

most destructive, way of thinking has, indeed, been 
produced, like almost all other evils, by the Acts of 
our Septennial and Unreformed Parliament. That 
body, by its Acts, has caused an enormous debt to be 
created, and, in consequence, a prodigious sum to be 
raised annually in taxes. It has caused, by these 
means, a race of loan-mongers and stock-jobbers to 
arise. These carry on a species of gaming, by which 
some make fortunes in a day, and others, in a day, 
become beggars. The unfortunate gamesters, like 
the purchasers of blanks in a lottery, are never heard 
of; but the fortunate ones become companions for 
lords, and some of them lords themselves. We have, 
within these few years, seen many of these gamesters 
get fortunes of a quarter of a million in a few days, 
and then we have heard them, though notoriously 
amongst the lowest and basest of human creatures, 
called " honourable gentlemen !" In such a state of 
things, who is to expect patient industry, laborious 
study, frugality and care ; who, in such a state of 
things, is to expect these to be employed in pursuit 
of that competence which it is the laudable wish of 
all men to secure ? Not long ago a man, who had 
served his time to a tradesman in London, became, 
instead of pursuing his trade, a stock-jobber, or gam- 
bler ; and, in about two years, drove his coach-and- 
four, had his town-house and country-house, and 
visited, and was visited by, peers of the highest rank ! 
A felloiv-apprentice of this lucky gambler, though a 
tradesman in excellent business, seeing no earthly 
reason why he should not have his coach-and-four 
also, turned his stock in trade into a stake for the 
'Change ; but, alas ! at the end of a few months, 
instead of being in a coach-and-four, he was in the 
Gazette ! 

22. This is one instance out of hundreds of thou- 
sands j not, indeed, exactly of the same description, 



[< I [Letter 



but all arising from the same cop urce« The 

words speculate and speculation have been substituted 
for gamble and gambling* The hatefulness of the 

pursuit is thus taken away 5 and, while taxes to the 
amount of more than double the whole of the rental 
of the kingdom; while these cause such crowds of 

idlers, every one of whom calls himself a gentleman, 

and avoids the appearance of working for his bread; 
while this is the case, who is to wonder, that a great 
part of the youth of this country, knowing themseh 
to be as good, as learned, and as well-bred as these 
gentlemen; who is to wonder, that they think that 
they also ought to be considered as gentlemen f Then, 
the late war (also the work of the Septennial Parlia- 
ment) lias left us, amongst its many legacies, such 
swarms of titled men and women ; such swarms of 
u Sirs 99 and their " Ladies; 99 men and women who, 
only the other day, were the fellow-apprentices, 
fellow-tradesmen's or farmer's sons and daughters, 
or, indeed, the fellow-servants, of those who are now 
in these several states of life ; the late Septennial 
Parliament Mar has left us such swarms of the 
that it is no wonder that the heads of young people 
are turned, and that they are ashamed of that state 
of life to act their part well in which ought to be their 
delight. 

23. Butj though the cause of the evil is in A< I 
the Septennial Parliament : though this universal 
ire in people to be thought to be above their sta- 
tion ; though this arises from such acts; and, though 
no wonder that young men are thus turned from 
patient study and labour; though these things be 
undoubted, they form no reason why 1 should not 
warn you against becoming a victim to this national 
scourge. For, in spite of every art made ' to 

avoid labour, the taxes will, after all, maintain only 
many idlers. We cannot all be w knights? 9 and 



L] TO A YOUTH. 9 

" gentlemen ;*' there must be a large part of us, after 
all, to make and mend clothes and houses, and carry 
on trade and commerce, and in spite of all that we 
can do, the far greater part of us must actually work 
at something; for, unless we can get at some of the 
taxes, we fall under the sentence of Holy Writ, " He 
who will not work shall not eat" Yet, so strong is 
the propensity to be thought "gentlemen;" so ge- 
neral is this desire amongst the youth of this formerly 
laborious and unassuming nation ; a nation famed for 
its pursuit of wealth through the channels of patience, 
punctuality, and integrity; a nation famed for its 
love of solid acquisitions and qualities, and its hatred 
of every thing showy and false; so general is this 
really fraudulent desire amongst the youth of this 
now w speculating" nation, that thousands upon thou- 
sands of them are, at this moment, in a state of half 
starvation, not so much because they are too lazy to 
earn their bread, as because they are too proud! 
And what are the consequences? Such a youth remains 
or becomes a burden to his parents, of whom he 
ought to be the comfort, if not the support. Always 
aspiring to something higher than he can reach, his 
life is a life of disappointment and of shame. If 
marriage hefal him, it is a real affliction, involving 
others as well as himself. His lot is a thousand 
times worse than that of the common labouring 
pauper. Nineteen times out of twenty a premature 
death awaits him : and, alas ! how numerous are the 
cases in which that death is most miserable, not to 
say ignominious ! Stupid pride is one of the symp- 
toms of madness. Of the two madmen mentioned in 
Don Quixote, one thought himself Neptune, and 
the other Jupiter. Shakspeare agrees with Cer- 
vantes ; for Mad Tom, in King Lear, being asked 
who he is, answers, " 1 am a tailor run mad with 
prick" How many have we heard of, who claimed 

b 5 



10 ( 0BB1 

tionship with noblemen and kings, while of nut a 
few each has thought himself the Son of God! To 

the public journals, and to the observation cry 

one, nay, to the u counfij lunatic Oiylumf 3 (things 
never heard of in England till now), I appeal for I 
fact of the vast and hideous increase of mad 
litis country; and, within these very few years, how- 
many scores of young men, vrho, if their minds had 
been unperverted by the gambling principles of the 
day, had a probably long and happy life before them; 
who had talent, personal endowments, love of parents, 
love of friends, admiration of large circles; who had, 
in short, everything to make life desirable, and who, 
from mortified pride, founded on false pretensions, 
put an end to their OtVtl d'tstence ! 
24. As to Drunkenness and GLUTTONY, gene- 
rally so called, these are vices so nasty and beastly, 
that I deem any one capable of indulging in them to 
be wholly unworthy of my advice ; and, if any youth 
unhappily initiated in these odious and debasing 
vices should happen to read what I am now writing, 
I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the 
Israelites by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. 
The father and mother art* to take the bad son a and 
" bring him to the elders of the city-; and they shall 
M say to the elders, This our son will not obey our 
u voice : he is a glutton and a drunkard* And all the 
" men of the city shall stone him with stones, that 
" he die/ 3 1 refer downright beastly gluttons and 
drunkards to this ; but indulgence short, far short \ 
of this gross and really nasty drunkenness and glut- 
tony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with the 
more earnestness, because it is too often looked upon 
as being no crime at all, and as having nothing 
blamable in it : nay, there are many persons who 
pride themselves on their refined taste in matters 
connected with eating and drinking : so far from 



L] TO A YOUTH. Jl 

being ashamed of employing their thoughts on the 
subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. Gregory,, 
one of the Christian fathers, says : u It is not the 
u quantity or the quality of the meat, or drink, but 
a the love of it that is condemned; 95 that is to say, 
the indulgence beyond the absolute demands of 
nature ; the hankering after it ; the neglect of some 
duty or other for the sake of the enjoyments of the 
table. 

25. This love of what are called Ci good eating and 
drinking/ 5 if very unamiable in grown-up persons, 
is perfectly hateful in a youth ; and, if he indulge in 
the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn 
you against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is 
not my province ; that is the business of those who 
make and administer the law. I am not talking to 
you against acts which the jailor and the hangman 
punish ; nor against those moral offences which all 
men condemn ; but against indulgences, which, by 
men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but 
meritorious ; but which the observation of my whole 
life has taught me to regard as destructive to human 
happiness, and against which all ought to be cautioned 
even in their boyish days. I have been a great ob- 
server, and I can truly say, that I have never known 
a man "fond of good eating and drinking/ 5 as it is 
called; that I have never known such a man (and 
hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect. 
26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very 
expensive. The materials are costly, and the prepa- 
rations still more so. What a monstrous thing, that 
in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there must 
be a person or two at loork every day ! More fuel, 
culinary implements, kitchen-room ; what ! all these 
merely to tickle the palate of four or fiye people, 
and especially people who can hardly pay their way ! 
And, then, the loss of time : the time spent in pleas- 



1 2 i OBBRl i I advice [Letter 

ing tlit: palate : it is truly horrible to behold people 
who ought to be at work, sitting; at the three meals, 
not Less than three of the about fourteen hours that 
they are out of their buds ! A youth* habituated to 
this sort of indulgence* cannot be valuable to any 
employer. Such a youth eannot be deprived of his 
table-enjoyments on any account : his eating and 
drinking form the momentous eonecrn of his life: 
if business interfere with that, the business must 
give way. A young man, mjhic years ago, offered 
himself to me, on a particular occasion* as an ama- 
, for which he appeared to be perfectly quali- 
fied. The terms were settled, and I, who wanted 
the job despatehed, requested him to sit down, and 
begin; but he, looking out of the window* whence 
he could see the church-clock, said, somewhat has- 
tily, " I cannot stop now, sir, I must go to dinner:' 
" Oh V 3 said I, u you must go to dinner, must you ! 
" Let the dinner, which you must wait upon to-day, 
" have your constant services, then: for you and I 
" shall never agree." He had told me that he was in 
fireat distress for want of employment ; and yet, 
when relief was there before his eyes, he could 
forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and 
drinking three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than 1 
should have thought it right for him to leave off work. 
Such a person cannot be sent from home, except at 
certain times ; he must be near the kitchen at three 
fixed hours of the day; if he be absent more than 
four or live hours, he is ill-treated. In short, a youth 
thus pampered is worth nothing as a person to be 
employed in business. 

'J7. And, as to friends and acquaintances; they 

will say nothing to youj they will offer you indul- 

under their roofs ; but the more ready you 

are to accept of their oilers, and, in fact, the better 

taste you discover, the less they will like you, and 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 13 

the sooner they will find means of shaking you off; 
for, besides the cost which you occasion them, peo- 
ple do not like to have critics sitting in judgment on 
their bottles and dishes. Water-drinkers are univer- 
sally laughed at ; but, it has always seemed to me> 
that they are amongst the most welcome of guests, 
and that, too, though the host be by no means of a 
niggardly turn. The truth is, they give no trouble; 
they occasion no anxiety to please them; they are 
sure not to make their sittings inconveniently long ; 
and, which is the great thing of all, their example 
teaches moderation to the rest of the company. Your 
notorious " lovers of good cheer" are, on the con- 
trary, not to be invited without due reflection : to en- 
tertain one of them is a serious business ; and as 
people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such 
pieces of business, the well-known " lovers of good 
" eating and drinking" are left, very generally, to 
enjoy it by themselves and at their ow T n expense. 

28. But, all other considerations aside, health, the 
most valuable of all earthly possessions, and without 
which all the rest are worth nothing, bids us, not 
only to refrain from excess in eating and drinking, 
but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged 
in without any apparent impropriety. The words 
of Ecclesiasticus ought to be read once a week by 
every young person in the world, and particularly 
by *he young people of this country at this time. 
" Eat modestly that which is set before thee, and 
" devour not, lest thou be hated. When thou sit- 
Ci test amongst many, reach not thine hand out 
u first of all. How little is sufficient for man ivell 
" taught ! A wholesome sleep cometh of a temperate 
" belly. Such a man riseth up in the morning, and is 
" well at ease with himself. Be not too hasty of 
" meats; for excess of meats bringeth sickness, and 
66 choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit 



14 COBBVl ■• ; [L( I 

"have mans- perished, and he that dieteth Mn 

" /■' Show not thy valiant 

*• wine: for ivine hath destroyed many. Wine mea- 
** snrahlv taken, and in season, bringeth gladn 
u and cheerfulness of mind; but drinking with ex- 
" cess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and 

%% Scoldings." Ho v tme are these words ! How 
well worthy of a constant place in our memories! 
Vet what pains have been taken to apologize for a 
life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! 

what punishment can he too great, what mark of in- 
famy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains 
of talent, who have employed that talent in the com- 
position of Bacchanalian tongs; that is to say, pieces 
Of line captivating writing in praise of one of the 
most odious and' destructive vices in the bll 
catalogue of human depravity. 

29. In the passage which I have just quoted from 
chap. xxxi. of ECCLESIA&TICUS, it is said that 
u wine measurably taken, and in season/ 3 is a //roper 
{king* This, and other such passages of the Old 
Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to 
extravagant people, to insist, that God intended that 
wine should be commbnly drunk. No doubt of that. 
But, then, He could intend this only m countries in 
which He had given vine, and to which He had given 
no cheaper drink except Water. If it be said, B 
truly may, that, by the means of the sea and the 
winds, lie lias given wine to all i I an&V 

1 1 wit this gift is of no use to us now, because our Go- 
vernment Steps in between the sea and the winds and 
us. Formerly, indeed, the case was different: and, 
here 1 am about to give you. incidentally, a piece 
historical knowledge, which you will not have acquired 
from Hume, Goldsmith, or any other of the 
romancers called historians. Before that unfortunate 
event, the Protestant Reformation, as it is called, took 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 15 

place., the price of red wine, in England, was four- 
pence a gallon, Winchester measure ; and of white 
wine, sixpence a gallon. At the same time the pay 
of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was four- 
pence. Now, when a labouring man could earn four 
quarts of good ivine in a clay, it was, doubtless, allow- 
able, even in England, for people in the middle rank 
of life to drink wine rather commonly ; and, there- 
fore, in those happy days of England, these passages 
of Scripture were applicable enough, But, now, 
when we have got a Protestant Government, which, 
by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes 
the eighth part of a gallon of wine to cost more than 
the pay of a labouring man for a day ; now, this pas- 
sage of Scripture is not applicable to us. There is no 
" season " in which we can take wine without ruining 
ourselves, however "measurably" we may take it; 
and I beg you to regard as perverters of Scripture 
and as seducers of youth, all those who cite passages 
like that above cited, in justification of, or as an 
apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in Eng- 
land. 

30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and 
to remember every word of, the passage which I have 
just quoted from the book of Ecc^esiasticus. How 
completely have been, and are, its words verified by 
my experience and in my person ! How little of 
eating and drinking is sufficient for me ! How 
wholesome is my sleep ! How early do I rise ; and 
how "ivell at ease" am I "with myself!" I should 
not have deserved such blessings, if I had withheld 
from my neighbours a knowledge of the means by 
which they were obtained ; and, therefore, this 
knowledge I have been in the constant habit of com- 
municating. When one gives a dinner to a company, 
it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sen- 
sible men, for purposes other than those of eating 



16 cobbbtt 3 i ai>\ ice Letter 

and drinking. But in general, in the every-day life, 
despicable are those who suffer any part of their 
happiness to depend upon what they nave to eat or 
to drink, provided they have a sufficiency of whole" 
some food; despicable is the man, and worse than 
despicable the youth, that would make any sacri- 
fice, however small, whether of money or of time, or 
of anything else, in order to secure a dinner different 
from that which he would have had without such sa- 
crifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater 
quantify of labour than I have performed ? What 
man ever did so much ? Now, in a great measure, 
I owe my capability to perform this labour to my 
disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in 
Newgate, with a line on my head of a thousand 
pounds to the King, for having expressed my indig- 
nation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard 
of German bayonets, I ate, during the one whole 
year, one mutton-chop every day. Being onee in 
town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, 
while my family was in the country, I had during 
ne weeks nothing but legs of mutton ; first day, 
leg of mutton boiled or roasted ; second, cold; third, 
hashed; then, leg of mutton boiled: and so on. 
When I have been by myself, or nearly so, I have 
always proceeded thus : given directions for having 
( /•( nj day I lie same tiling, or alternately as above, and 
every day, exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent 
the necessity of any talk about the matter. I am 
certain thai, upon an average, I have not, during my 
life, spent more than thirty-fee minutes a day at 
tattle, including all the meals of the day. I like, and 
I take care to have, good and clean victuals: but, ii 
wholesome and clean, that is enough. If I find it, 
by chance, too coarse for my appetite^ I put the food 
aside, or let somebody do it, and leave the appetite 
to gather keenness. But the great security of all is, 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 17 

to eat little and to drink nothing that intoxicates. 
He that eats till he is full is little better than a 
beast; and he that drinks till he is drunk is quite a 
beast. 

31. "Before I dismiss this affair of eating and 
drinking, let me beseech you to resolve to free 
yourselves from the slavery of the tea and coffee and 
other slop-kettle, if, unhappily, you have been bred 
up in such slavery. Experience has taught me that 
those slops are injurious to health : until I left them 
oif (having taken to them at the age of 26), even my 
habits of sobriety, moderate eating, early rising; 
even these were not, until I left off the slops, suffi- 
cient to give me that complete health which I have 
since had. I pretend not to be a " doctor ;*' but, I 
assert, that to pour regularly, every day, a pint or two 
of warm liquid matter down the throat, whether 
under the name of tea, coffee, soup, grog, or what- 
ever else, is greatly injurious to health. However, at 
present, what I have to represent to you is the great 
deduction ujhich the use of these slops makes from 
your power of being useful, and also from your power 
to husband your income, whatever it may be, and from 
whatever source arising. I am to suppose you to be 
desirous to become a clever and a useful man; a 
man to be, if not admired and revered, at least to be 
respected. In order to merit respect beyond that 
which is due to very common men, you must do 
something more than very common men ; and I am 
now going to show you how your cou?*se must be 
impeded by the use of the slops. ■/ 

32. If the women exclaim, " Nonsense ! come and 
take a cup/ 5 take it for that once ; but hear what I 
have to say. In answer to my representation regard- 
ing the waste of time which is occasioned by the slops, 
it has been said, that let what may be the nature of 
the food, there must be time for taking it. Not so 



18 COfiBXOT I AAvfl [Letter 

Miif, however, to eat a bit of meal or cheese or 

butter with a bit of bread. But, I 
in a shop, a warehouse, a factory, far from any fire y 
and even in a carriage on the road. The Blops abso- 
lutely demand fire and a congregation ■ so that, be 
your business what it may ; be you shopkeeper, 
farmer, drover, sportsman, traveller, to the stop-board 

you must come; you must wait for its assembling, or 
Start from home without your breakfast ; and, b< 

used to the warm liquid, you feel out of order for the 
Want of it. If the slops were in fashion amongst 
ploughmen and carters, we must all be starved; 
the food could never be raised. The mechanics are 
half-ruined by the^i Many of them arc become 
poor, enervated creatures; and trkieHy from this 
cause. But is the positive cost nothing? At board 
ing-schools an additional price 'is (fir en on account of 
the tea-slops. Suppose you to be a clerk, in hired 
lodgings, and going to your counting-house at nine 
o'clock. You get your dinner, perhaps, near to the 
scene of your work ; but how arc you to have the 
breakfast s/ops without a servant f Perhaps you find 
a lodging just to suit you, but the house is occupied 
by people who keep no servants^ and you want a ser- 
vant to tight a f/re and get the slop ready. You 
could get this lodging for several shillings a week less 
than another at the next door; but there they keep 
a servant, who will u get you your breakfast," and 
preserve you, benevolent creal the IS, from the 

cruel necessity of going to the cupboard and cutti 
off a slice of meat or cheese and a bit of bread. She 
will, most likely, toast your bread for you too, and 
melt your butter; and then muffle you up, in winter, 
and send you out almost swaddled. Really such a thing 
can hardly be expected ever to become a man. You 
are weak ; you have delicate health ; you are 
u bilious P* Why, my good fellow, it is these very slops 



L] TO A YOUTH. 19 

that make you weak and bilious ! And, indeed, the 
poverty , the real poverty, that they and their con- 
comitants bring on you, greatly assists, in more ways 
than one, in producing your " delicate health/ 5 

33. So much for indulgences in eating, drinking, 
and dress. Next, as to amusements. It is recorded 
of the famous Alfred, that he devoted eight hours 
of the twenty-four to labour, eight to rest, and eight 
to recreation. He was, however, a king, and could 
be thinking during the eight hours of recreation. It 
is certain, that there ought to be hours of recreation, 
and I do not know that eight are too many; but, 
then, observe, those hours ought to be well chosen, 
and the sort of recreation ought to be attended to. 
It ought to be such as is at once innocent in itself 
and in its tendency, and not injurious to health. The 
sports of the field are the best of all, because they 
are conducive to health, because they are enjoyed by 
day-light, and because they demand early rising. The 
nearer that other amusements approach to these, the 
better they are. A town-life, which many persons 
are compelled, by the nature of their calling, to lead, 
precludes the possibility of pursuing amusements of 
this description to any very considerable extent; and 
young men in towns are, generally speaking, com- 
pelled to choose between books on the one hand, or 
gaming and the play-house on the other. Dancing is 
at once rational and healthful ; it gives animal spirits : 
it is the natural amusement of young people, and 
such it has been from the days of Moses : it is en- 
joyed in numerous companies : it makes the parties 
to be pleased with themselves and with all about 
them ; it has no tendency to excite base and malig- 
nant feelings ; and none but the most grovelling and 
hateful tyranny, or the most stupid and despicable 
fanaticism, ever raised its voice against it. The bad 
modern habits of England have created one incon- 



20 I 0BBBTT*8 ADVI4 I [Letter 

venience attending the enjoyment of this healthy and 
innocent pastime ; namely, late hours, which are at 
once injurious to health and destructive of order and 
oi industry. In other countries people dance by day- 
light* Here, they do not; and, therefore, you must, 
in this respect, submit to the custom, though not 
without robbing the dancing night of as many hours 
as you can. 

3 I. As to GAMING, it is always criminal either in 
itself or in its tendency. The basis oi' it is covetous- 
ness ; a desire to take from others something, for 
which you have given, and intend to give, no equiva- 
lent. No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and 
very few gamblers have escaped being miserable ; 
and, observe, to game for nothing is still gaming, and 
naturally leads to gaming for something. It is 
sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of pur- 
poses. 1 have kept house for nearly forty years ; I 
have reared a family; I have entertained as many 
friends as most people ; and I have never had cards, 
dice, a chess-board, nor any implement of gaming, 
under my roof. The hours that young men spend in 
this way are hours murdered: precious hours, that 
ought to be spent either in reading or in writing, or in 
rest, preparatory to the duties of the dawn. Though 
I do not agree with the base and nauseous flatterers, 
who now declare the army to be the best school for 
statesmen, it is certainly a school in which to learn 
experimentally many useful lessons : and, in tins 
school I learned, that men, fond of gaining, are very 
rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a 
clever man rejected in the way of promotion only 
because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that 
state of life, cannot rain themselves by gaming, for 
they possess no fortune, nor money: but the taste 
lor gaining is always regarded as an indication of a 
radically bad disposition ; and 1 can truly say, that I 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 21 

never in my whole life knew a man, fond of gaming, 
who was not, in some way or other, a person un- 
worthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very 
slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable 
passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling 
of the heart. The gambler, as portrayed by Reg- 
nard, in a comedy the translation of which into 
English resembles the original much about as nearly 
as Sir J. Graham's plagiarisms resembled the Re- 
gisters on which they had been committed, is a fine 
instance of the contempt and scorn to which gaming, 
at last, reduces its votaries ; but, if any young man 
be engaged in this fatal career, and be not yet wholly 
lost, let him behold Hogarth's gambler just when 
he has made his last throiv, and when disappointment 
has bereft him of his senses. If, after this sight, he 
remain obdurate, he is doomed to be a disgrace to his 
name. 

35. The Theatre may be a source not only of 
amusement but also of instruction; but, as things 
now are in this country, what, that is not bad, is to 
be learned in this school ? In the first place, not a 
word is allowed to be uttered on the stage, which has 
not been previously approved of by the Lord Cham- 
berlain ; that is to say, by a person appointed by the 
Ministry, who, at his pleasure, allows, or dissallows, 
of any piece, or any words in a piece, submitted to his 
inspection. In short, those who go to play-houses 
pay their money to hear uttered such words as the 
Government approve of, and no others. It is now just 
twenty-six years since I first well understood how 
this matter was managed ; and, from that moment to 
this, I have never been in an English play-house. 
Besides this, the meanness, the abject servility, of 
the players, and the slavish conduct of the audience, 
are sufficient to corrupt and debase the heart of any 
young man, who is a frequent beholder of them. 



22 cobrett's advk [Letter 

Homage is here paid to everv one clothed with 
power, he he who or what he may: real virtue and 
public-spirit are subjects of ridicule ; and mock-sen- 
linient and mock-hberalit v and mock-luvalty are ap- 
plauded to the skii 

36. "Show me a man's companions,* the 

proverb, "and I will tell you what the man is;" and 
this is, and must he, true ; be< the 

liety of those* who think and act somewhat like 

themselves: sober men will not associate with drunk- 
ards, frugal men will not like spendthrifts, and the 
orderly and decent shun the noisy, the disorderly 
and the debauched. It is for the very vulgar to herd 
together as singers* ringers, and smokers; but, there 

is a class rather higher still more blamable ; 1 mean 
the tavern-haunters, the gay companions who herd 
together to do little but talk, and who arc so fond of 
talk that they go from home to get at it. The con- 
versation amongst such persons has nothing of in- 
struction in it, and is generally of a vicious ten 
Young people naturally and commendably seek the 
liety of those of their own age; but, be careful in 
choosing your companions; and lay this down as a 
rule never to be departed from, that no youth, nor man, 
ought to be called your friend, who is addicted to 
decent ia/h, or who is fond of the society of 'pros/ it < 
Blither of these argues a depraved taste, and even a 
depraved heart; an absence of all principle and of all 
trust-worthiness ; and I have remarked it all my life 
long, that young men, addicted to these Vices, never 
succeed in the end, whatever advantages they may 
have, whether in fortune or in talent. Fond mothers 
and fathers arc but too apt to be over-lenient to such 
offenders ; and as long as youth lasts and fortune 

smiles, the punishment is deferred : but, it a 

last: it is sure to come: and the gay and dissolute 
youth is a dejected and miserable man. \\ 



ute 



L] TO A YOUTH. 23 

early part of a life spent in illicit indulgences, a man 
is univorthy of being the husband of a virtuous 
woman ; and, if he have anything like justice in him, 
how is he to reprove, in his children, vices in which 
he himself so long indulged ? These vices of youth 
are varnished over by the saying, that there must be 
time for " sowing the wild oats" and that Ci wildest 
" colts make the best horses" These figurative oats 
are, however, generally like the literal ones ; they are 
never to be eradicated from the soil; and as to the 
colts, wildness in them is an indication of high ani- 
mal spirit, having nothing at all to do with the mind, 
which is invariably debilitated and debased by profli- 
gate indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophis- 
try, the offspring of parental weakness, is in constant 
use, to the incalculable injury of the rising genera- 
tion. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy 
boy ? He is of real use at an early age : he can be 
trusted far out of the sight of parent or employer, 
while the "pickle" as the poor fond parents call the 
profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because 
there must be some one to see that he does no harm. 
If you have to choose, choose companions of your 
own rank in life as nearly as may be ; but, at any 
rate ; none to whom you acknowledge inferiority ; for, 
slavery is too soon learned ; and, if the mind be 
bowed down in the youth, it will seldom rise up in 
the man. In the schools of those best of teachers, 
the Jesuits, there is perfect equality as to rank in 
life ; the boy, who enters there, leaves all family pride 
behind him : intrinsic merit alone is the standard of 
preference ; and the masters are so scrupulous upon 
this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of 
whatever rank, to have more money to spend than 
the poorest. These wise men know well the mis- 
chiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary 
means amongst their scholars : they know how inju- 



24 C0BBETT*s advice [Letter 

rious if. would be to learning, if deference wore, hv the 
learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore, take 
the most effectual moans to prevent it. Hence, 
amongst other causes, it is. that the scholars have, 
ever since the existence of their Order, been the nn 
celebrated for learning of any men in the world. 

37« In your manners be neither boorish nor blunt, 
but even these arc preferable to simpering and crawl- 
ing, I wish every English youth could see those of 
the United Slates of America; always civil, never 
servile. Be obedient, where obedience is due; for it 
is no act of meanness, and no indication of want of 
spirit, to yield implicit and ready obedience to th< 
who have a right to demand it at your hands. In 
this respect England has been, and, I hope, always 
will be, an example to the whole world. To this 
habit of willing and prompt obedience in apprentic 
in servants, in all Inferiors in station, she owes, in a 
great measure, her multitudes of matchless mer- 
chants, tradesmen, and workmen of every descrip- 
tion, and also the. achievements of her armies and 
navies. It is no disgrace, but the contrary, to obey, 
cheerfully, lawful and just commands. None are so 
saucy and disobedient as slaves ; and, when you 
come to read history, you will find that in proportion 
as nations have been free has been their reverence for 
the laws, But, there is a wide difference between 
lawful and cheerful obedience, and that servility 
which represents people as laying petitions c: at the 
femff's feet" which makes us imagine thai we behold 
the supplicants actually crawling upon their bellies. 
There is something so abject in this expression ; 
there is such horrible self-abasement in it, that I do 
hope that every youth, who shall road this, will hold 
in detestation the reptiles who make use of it. In 
all other countries, the lowest individual can put a 
petition into the hands of the chief magistrate, be he 



L] TO A YOUTH* 25 

king or emperor : let us hope, that the time will yet 
come when Englishmen will he able to do the same. 
In the meanwhile I beg you to despise these worse 
than pagan parasites. 

38. Hitherto I have addressed you chiefly relative 
to things to be avoided; let me now turn to the 
things which you ought to do. And, first of all, 
the husbanding of your time. The respect that you 
will receive, the real and sincere respect, will depend 
entirely on what you are able to do. If you be rich, 
you may purchase what is called respect ; but it is 
not worth having. To obtain respect worth pos- 
sessing you must, as I observed before, do more 
than the common run of men in your state of life; 
and, to be enabled to do this, you must manage 
well your time ; and, to manage it well, you must 
have as much of the day-light ^nd as little of the 
candle-light as is consistent with the due discharge 
of your duties. When people get into the habit 
of sitting up merely for the purpose of talking, it is no 
easy matter to break themselves of it; and if they 
do not go to bed early, they cannot rise early. 
Young people require more sleep than those that 
are grown up : there must be the number of hours, 
and that number cannot well be, on an average, 
less than eight ; and if it be more in winter time it is 
all the better ; for, an hour in bed is better than an 
hour spent over fire and candle in an idle gossip. 
People never should sit talking till they do not 
know what to talk about. It is said by the country- 
people, that one hour's sleep before midnight is 
worth more than two are woxth after midnight, 
and this I believe to be a fact ; but, it is useless to 
go to bed early, and even to rise early, if the time 
be not well employed after rising. In general 
half the morning is loitered away, the party being in 
a sort of half-dressed half-naked state; outofbed 3 

c 



2f> connr/ci* ADVICE [Letter 

indeed, but still in a SOft of bedding. Those who 

first invented morning-gowns and slippers could have 

very little else to do. These thi verv suit- 

able to those who have had fortunes gained for 
them by others ; very suitable to those who have 
nothing to do, and who merely live 4 for the purpose 
Df assisting to consume the produce of the earth : 
but he who lias his bread to earn, or who means 
be W0!thy of respect on account of his ! 
no business with morning-gown and slippers. In 
short, be your business or calling what it may, d 
af once for the day ; and learn to do it as qtdckh 
possible. A looking-glass is a piece of furniture 
a great deal worse than useless. Looking at the 
face will not alter its shape or itS colour; and. per- 
haps, of all wasted time, none is so foolishly wasted. 
as that which is employed in surveying one's own 
face. Nothing can be of little importance if one be 
compelled to attend to it every day of our the* ; if 
we shaved but once a year, or once a month, the 
execution of the thing would be hardly Worth 
naming : but, this is a piece of work that must be 
done once every day ; and, as it may cost only about 
five minutes of time,, and may be, and frequently is. 
made to cost thirty, or even fifty minutes; and, as 
only fifteen minutes make about a fifty-eighth part of 
the hours of our average day-light : thi- the 

case, this is a matter of real importance. I once 
heard Sir John SINCLAIR ask Mr. ( \e 

Johnstone, whether he meaned to haw of 

his (thetl a little boy) taught Latin. * N o/ J said 
Mr. Johnstone, w% but 1 mean to do something a gfl 
" deal better for him." tt What is that i Sir 

.John. u Why/ 3 said the other, "teach him to shi 
c - with cold tyaifjr and without a glass." Which, I 
dare say. he did ; rind, for which benefit I am sure 
that son has -rood reason to be grateful, Onlv tl 



L] TO A YOUTH. 27 

of the inconvenience attending the common practice ! 
There must be hot ivater ; to have this there must 
be a fire, and, in some cases, a fire for that purpose 
alone ; to have these, there must be a servant, or you 
must light a fire yourself. For the want of these 
the job is put off until a later hour; this causes a 
stripping and another dressing bout ; or, you go in 
a slovenly state all that clay, and the next day the 
thing must be done, or cleanliness must be aban- 
doned altogether. If you be on a journey, you 
must wait the pleasure of the servants at the inn, 
before you can dress and set out in the morning; 
the pleasant time for travelling is gone before you 
can move from the spot; instead of being at the 
end of your day's journey in good time, you are 
benighted, and have to endure all the great inconve- 
niences attendant on tardy movements. And all 
this, from the apparently insignificant affair of 
shaving ! How many a piece of important business 
has failed from a short delay ! And how many thou- 
sand of such delays daily proceed from this unworthy 
cause ! u Toujours prft ! " was the motto of a 
famous French general; and, pray, let it be yours : 
be " always ready ;" and never, during your whole 
life, have to say, " I cannot go till I he shaved and 
dressed" Do the whole at once for the day, what- 
ever may be your state of life ; and then you have 
a day unbroken by those indispensable performances. 
Begin thus, in the days of your youth, and, having 
felt the superiority which this practice will give you 
over those in all other respects your equals, the 
practice will stick by you to the end of your life. 
Till you be shaved and dressed for the day, you can- 
not set steadily about any business ; you know that 
you must presently quit your labour to return to the 
dressing affair ; you, therefore, put it off until that 
be over; the interval^ the precious interval, is spent 

4> 



28 I OBBBTI *S advk i [Loiter 

in lounging about ; and, by the time that you are 

ready for business, the best part of the day is gone. 

39. Trifling as this matter appears upon naming 

it. it is, in fact, one of the great concerns of life; 

and, for my part. I can truly say, that J OW6 01 

of my great Labours to my strict adherence to the 
precepts that I have here given you, than to all the 

natural abilities with which 1 have been endowed: 
for these, whatever may have been their amount, 
would have been of comparatively little use, even 
aided by great sobriety and abstinence, it' I had not, 
in early life, contracted the blessed habit of hi 
banding well my time. To this, more than to any 
other thing, I owed my very extraordinary proi. 
lion in the army. I was always ready: it' 1 had to 
mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine . never did 
any man, or any thing, wait one moment tor me. 
Being, at an age under twenty '/curs, raised from 
Corporal to Sergeant-Major at once, over the heads 
of thirty Sergeants, I naturally should have l< 
an object of envy and hatred ; but this habit of 
early rising and of rigid adherence to the precepts 
which 1 have given you, really subdued these pas- 
sions ; because every one felt, that what I did he 
had never done, and never could do. Before my 
promotion, a clerk was wanted to ♦make out the 
morning report of the regiment. F rendered the 
clerk unnecessary ; and long before 4 any other man 
was dressed for the parade, my work fur tin 1 morn- 
ing was all done, and I myself was on the parade, 
walking, in line weather, for an hour perhaps. My 
custom was this: to get up, in summer, at day-light, 
and in winter at four o'clock ; shave, dress, even 
to the putting of my sword-belt over my shoulder, 
and having my sword lying on the table before me, 
lv to hang bj my side. Then 1 ate a bit ot 
cheese, or pork, and bread. Then 1 prepared my 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 29 

report, which was filled up as fast as the companies 
brought me in the materials. After this I had an 
hour or two to read, before the time came for any 
duty out of doors,, unless when the regiment or part 
of it went out to exercise in the morning. When 
this was the case, and the matter was left to me, I 
always had it on the ground in such time as that 
the bayonets glistened in the rising stm, a sight 
which gave me delight, of which I often think, but 
which I should in vain endeavour to describe. If 
the officers were to go out, eight or ten o^clock was 
the hour, sweating the men in the heat of the day, 
breaking in upon the time for cooking their dinner, 
putting all things out of order and all men out of 
humour. When I was commander, the men had a 
long day of leisure before them : they could ramble 
into the town or into the woods ; go to get raspberries, 
to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other 
recreation, and such of them as chose, and were quali- 
fied, to work at their trades. So that here, arising 
solely from the early habits of one very young man, 
were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds. 

40. Money is said to be power, which is, in some 
cases, true ; and the same may be said of knowledge : 
but superior sobriety, industry, and activity, are a 
still more certain source of power ; for, without 
these, knoivledge is of little use ; and, as to the 
power which money gives, it is that of brute force, 
it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet, 
and of the bribed press, tongue and pen. Superior 
sobriety, industry, activity, though accompanied with 
but a moderate portion of knowledge, command re- 
spect, because they have great and visible influence. 
The drunken, the lazy, and the inert, stand abashed 
before the sober and the active. Besides, all those 
whose interests are at stake prefer, of necessity, 
those whose exertions produce the greatest and 



30 co i [Letter 

most immediate, and visible effect. Self-interest is 
no respecter of persons : it i >t who knows 

best what oughl to be done, but who is most likely 

to do it ; we may, and often do* admire tlie laK 
of lazy and even dissipated men, but we do not 
trust them with the eare of our interests. It, there- 
fore, you would have respect: and influence in the 
Circle in which you move, he more sober* more in- 
dustrious, more active than the general run of tli 
amongst whom you live. 

41, As to Education* this word is now applied 
exclusively to things which are taught in schools ; 
but* ah/cation means rearing up, and the French 
speak of the education of pigs and sheep. In a very 
famous French book on rural affairs, there i 
Chapter entitled ft Education du CoQhon f* thai 
education of the hog. The word has the same 
meaning in both languages : for both take it from 
the Latin. Neither is the word learning pro- 
perly confined to things taught in schools, or by 
books ; for learniuy means knowledge ; and* but a 
comparatively small part of useful knowledge comes 
from books. Men are not to be called ignorant 
merely, because they cannot make upon paper cer- 
tain marks with a pen, or because they do not know 
the meaning of such marks when made by others. 
A ploughman may be very learned in his line, though 
he does not know what the letters p.l.o.u.gji. m 
when he sees them combined upon paper. The 
first thing to be required of a man is* that he un- 
derstand well his awn calling or profession . and, 
be you in what state of life you may, to acquire this 
knowledge ought to be your first and greatest care. 
A man who has had a new-built-house tumble down 
will derive little more consolation from being told 
that the architect is a great astronomer, than this 
distressed nation now derives from being assured 



L] TO A YOUTH, 31 

that its distresses arise from the measures of a long 
list of the greatest orators and greatest heroes that 
the world ever beheld, 

42. Nevertheless, book-learning is by no means 
to be despised ; and it is a thing which may be 
laudably sought after by persons in all states of life. 
In those pursuits which are called professions, it is 
necessary, and also in certain trades ; and, in per- 
sons in the middle ranks of life, a total absence of 
such learning is somewhat disgraceful. There is, 
however, one danger to be carefully guarded against ; 
namely, the opinion that your genius, or your lite- 
rary acquirements, are such as to warrant you in 
disregarding the calling in which you are, and by 
which you gain your bread. Parents must have an 
uncommon portion of solid sense to counterbalance 
their natural affection sufficient to make them com- 
petent judges in such a case. Friends are partial; 
and those who are not, you deem enemies. Stick, 
therefore, to the shop ; rely upon your mercantile or 
mechanical or professional calling ; try your strength 
in literature, if you like; but rely on the shop. If 
Bloomfield, who wrote a poem, called the Farm- 
er^ Boy, had placed no reliance on the faithless 
Muses, his unfortunate and much to be pitied family 
would, in all probability, have not been in a state to 
solicit relief from charity. I remember that this 
loyal shoemaker was flattered to the skies, and 
(ominous sign, if he had understood it) feasted at 
the tables of some of the great. Have, I beseech 
you, no hope of this sort; and, if you find it creep- 
ing towards your heart, drive it instantly away as 
the mortal foe of your independence and your 
peace. 

43. With this precaution, however, book-learning 
is not only proper, but highly commendable : and 
portions of it are absolutely necessary in every case 
of trade or profession* One of these portions is dis- 



32 ( OBBBTT*a A.Dvn b Letter 

tinct reading, plain and neat writing, and arithmetic. 
The two former are mere child's work ; the latter not 
quite so easily acquired, but equally indispensable, 
and of it you ought to have a thorough knowled 
before you attempt to study even the grammar of 
your own language. Arithmetic is soon learned; it 
is not a tiling that requires much natural talent ; it 
is not ;i thing that loads the memory or puzzles the 
mind; and, it is a thing of every-day utility. There- 
lore, this is. to a certain extent, an absolute necessary; 
an indispensable acquisition. Every man is not to 
he a .surveyor or an actuary; and, therefore, you may 
stop far short of the knowledge, of this sort^ which is 
demanded by these professions ; but, as far as com- 
mon accounts and calculations go, you ought to be 
perfect; and this you may make yourself, without 
any assistance from a master., by bestowing upon this 
science, during six months, only one-half of the time 
that is, by persons of your age, usually wasted over 
the tea-slops, or other kettle-slops alone ! If you be- 
come fond of this science, there may be a little 
danger of your wasting your time on it. When, 
therefore, you have got as much of it as your busi- 
ness or profession can possibly render necessary, turn 
the time to some other purpose. As to books, on this 
subject, they are in everybody's hand: but there is 
book, on the subject of calculations, which I must 
point out to you; " The Cambist/* by Dr. Kelly. 
This is a bad title, because, to men in general, it 
"ives no idea of what the book treats ut\ It i 
book, which shows the value of the several pieces of 
money of one country when stated in the money of 
another country. For instance, it tells us what a 
Spanish Dollar, a Dutch Dollar, a French Franc, 
and so on, is worth in English money. It does the 
same with regard to weights and md and it 

extends its information to all the countries 'in the 
world. It is a work of rare merit ; and every youth, 



L] TO A YOUTH. 33 

be his state of life what it ma)^ if it permit him to 
pursue book-learning of any sort, and particularly, if 
he be destined, or at all likely to meddle with com- 
mercial matters, ought, as soon as convenient, to 
possess this valuable and instructive book. 

44. The next thing is the Grammar of your own 
language. Without understanding this, you can 
never hope to become fit for any thing beyond mere 
trade or agriculture. It is true, that we do (God 
knows !) but too often see men have great wealth, 
high titles, and boundless power heaped upon them, 
who can hardly write ten lines together correctly; 
but, remember, it is not merit that has been the 
cause of their advancement ; the cause has been, in 
almost every such case, the subserviency of the party 
to the will of some government, and the baseness of 
some nation who have quietly submitted to be go- 
verned by brazen fools. Do not you imagine, that 
you will have luck of this sort : do not you hope to 
be rewarded and honoured for that ignorance which 
shall prove a scourge to your country, and which will 
earn you the curses of the children yet unborn. 
Rely you upon your merit and upon nothing else. 
Without a knowledge of grammar, it is impossible 
for you to write correctly, and, it is by mere accident 
if you speak correctly ; and, pray, bear in mind, that 
all well-informed persons judge of a man's mind 
(until they have other means of judging) by his 
writing or speaking. The labour necessary to acquire 
this knowledge is, indeed, not trifling ; grammar is 
not like arithmetic, a science consisting of several 
distinct departments, some of which may be dis- 
pensed with : it is a whole, and the whole must be 
learned, or, no part is learned. The subject is ab- 
struse : it demands much reflection and much patience; 
but, when once the task is performed, it is performed 
for life, and in every day of that life it will be found 

c 5 



S I < nr.r.i.n V A.DVK 

to be, in a greater or l< of pleasure 

or of profit, or of both together. And. what is the 

labour ; It consists of no bodily exertion ; it i 

the student to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of 
any sort. Tlie study need subtract from the hours 
of no business,, nor, indeed, from the hours or' ne< 
sary exercise : the hours usually spent on the tea and 
coffee slops, and in the mere gossip which accompany 
them; those wasted hours* of only one year, em- 
ployed in the study of English grammar, would make 
you a correct speaker and writer for the rest oi your 
lite. You want no school, no room to study in, no 
expenses and no troublesome circumstances of any 
sort. I learned grammar when I was a private sol- 
dier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge oi my 
berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my seat to study 
in ; my knapsack w r as my bookcase; a bit of board 
lying on my lap was my writing-table; and the task 
clid not demand any thing like a year of my life. I 
had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter 
time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light 
but that of the fire, and only my turn even of that. 
And if I, under such circumstances, and without 
parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accom - 
plished this undertaking, what excuse can there be 
for innj yotith, however poor, however pressed with 
business, or however circumstanced as to room or 
other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper 
I was compelled to forego some portion of food, 
though in a state of half-starvation : 1 had no moment 
of time that I could call my own; and I had to read 
and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, 
whistling, and brawling of at least half a score of the 
most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours 
oi' their freedom from all control. Think not lightly 
of the farthing that 1 had to give, now and then, for 
ink, pen* or paper ! That farthing was, alas ! a great 



I.] TO A YOUTH. 35 

sum to me ! 1 was as tall as I am now ; I had 
great health and great exercise. The whole of the 
money, not expended for us at market, was two 
pence a iveek for each man. I remember, and well 
I may ! that, upon one occasion, I, after all abso- 
lutely necessary expenses, had, on a Friday, made 
shift to have a half-penny in reserve,, which I had 
destined for the purchase of a red-herring in the 
morning ; but, when I pulled off my clothes at night, 
so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, 
I found that I had lost my half-penny ! I buried my 
head under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried 
like a child ! And, again I say, if I, under circum- 
stances like these, could encounter and overcome 
this task, is there, can there be, in the whole world, 
a youth to find an excuse for the -non-performance ? 
What youth, who shall read this, will not be ashamed 
to say, that he is not able to find time and oppor- 
tunity for this most essential of all the branches of 
book-learning. 

45. I press this matter with such earnestness, 
because a knowledge of grammar is the foundation 
of all literature; and because without this know- 
ledge opportunities for writing and speaking are 
only occasions for men to display their unfitness to 
write and speak. How many false pretenders to 
erudition have I exposed to shame merely by my 
knowledge of grammar ! How many of the insolent 
and ignorant great and powerful have I pulled down 
and made little and despicable ! And, with what 
ease have I conveyed, upon numerous important 
subjects, information and instruction to millions 
now alive, and provided a store of both for millions 
yet unborn ! As to the course to be pursued in this 
great undertaking, it is, first, to read the grammar 
from the first word to the last, very attentively, 
several times over ; then, to copy the whole of it very 



I 



36 >bbei i ' i dvh i [Letter 

correctly and neatly; and then to study the Chap- 
one by one. And what does this reading and 
writing require as to time : Both to 'ether not note 

than the tea-slops and then m for thru: months ! 

There are about three hundred pages in my English 
Grammar. Four of those little pages in a day, 
which is a mere trifle of work, do the thing in tk 

months. Two hours a day are quite sufficient for 
the purpose ; and these may, in any town that I 
have ever known, or in any village, be taken from 
that part of the morning during which the main 
part of the people are in bed. J do not like the 
evening candle-light work : it wears the eyes much 
more than the same sort of light in the morin 
because then tin; faculties are in vigour and wholly 
unexhausted. But fortius purpose there is sufficient 
of that day-light which is usually wasted; usually 
sipped or lounged away; or spent in some other 
manner productive of no pleasure, and generally 
producing pain in the end. It is very becun 
in all persons, and particularly in the young, to he 
civil and even polite : but it becomes neither young 
nor old to have an everlasting simper on their fa 
and their bodies sawing in an everlasting bow ; and 
how many youths have 1 seen who, if they had spent, 
in the learning of grammar, a tenth part of the time 
that they have consumed in earning merited con- 
tempt for their affected gentility, would have laid the 
foundation of sincere respect towards them for the 
an hole of their lives ! 

46. Perseverance is a prime quality in every pur- 

mifr, and particularly in this. Yours is. too, the 
lime of hie to acquire this inestimable habit. Men 
tail much oftencr from want of perseverance than 
u want of talent and of good disposition: as the 
race was not to the hare but to the tortoise: so the 
meed of success in study is to him who is not in 
haste, but to him who proceeds with a steady and 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 37 

even step. It is not to a want of taste or of desire 
or of disposition to learn that we have to ascribe the 
rareness of good scholars,, so much as to the want of 
patient perseverance. Grammar is a branch of 
knowledge., like all other things of high value, which 
is of difficult acquirement : the study is dry ; the 
subject is intricate ; it engages not the passions ; 
and, if the great end be not kept constantly in view ; 
if you lose, for a moment, sight of the ample reward, 
indifference begins, that is followed by weariness, and 
disgust and despair close the book. To guard 
against this result be not in haste ; keep steadily on; 
and, when you find weariness approaching, rouse 
yourself, and remember, that, if you give up, all that 
you have clone has been done in vain. This is a 
matter of great moment ; for out of every ten, who 
undertake this task, there are, perhaps, nine who 
abandon it in despair; and this, too, merely for the 
want of resolution to overcome the first approaches 
of weariness. The most effectual means of security 
against this mortifying result is to lay down a rule 
to write or to read a certain fixed quantity every day, 
Sunday excepted. Our minds are not always in the 
same state; they have not, at all times, the same 
elasticity ; to-day we are full of hope on the very 
same grounds which, to-morrow, afford us no hope at 
all ; every human being is liable to those flows and 
ebbs of the mind; but, if reason interfere, and bid 
your overcome the fits of lassitude, and almost mecha- 
nically to go on without the stimulus of hope, the 
buoyant fit speedily returns ; you congratulate your- 
self that you did not yield to the temptation,, to 
abandon your pursuit, and you proceed with mike 
vigour than ever. Five or six triumphs over tempta- 
tation to indolence or despair lay the foundation of 
certain success; and what is of still more import- 
ance, fix in you the habit of perseverance. 

47. If I have bestowed a large portion of my space 



COBBfl ii B A DVH'i [Lei 

on tins topic, it has been beoause 1 know from * spe- 
rience as well mi from observation, thai i( is of m< 
importanoe khan all the other branches of book- 
learning put together* it gives you, wf 

it thoroughly, a real and practical bu| 
riority over the far greater part of men. How often 
did I experience this even long before 1 became what 
ia called an author I The Adjutant, under whom it 
was my duty to act, when I was a Serjeant-Major, 

, as almost all military officers are, or, al 
e, a very illiterate man, perceiving that 
tenee of mine was in the same ibrm and mannc. 

ttences in print, became shy of letting me see 
pieces of his writing. The writing of Order*, and 
other things, therefore, fell to me; and. thus, thoi 
no nominal addition was made to my pay, and no 
nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the 
latter as effectually as if a law had been passed to 
confer it upon me. In short, I owe to the ; 
sion of this branch of knowledge everything that 
lias enabled me to do so many things that very few 
other men have done, and that no I me a de- 

e of influence, such as is possessed by few oth< 
in the most weighty concerns of the country. The 
possession of this branch of knowledge raises you in 
your own esteem, gives just confidence in yoursell, 
and prevents you from being the willing slave of the 
rich and the titled part of the community. It enable.-* 
you to discover that riches and titles do not confer 
merit ; you think comparatively little of them; and, 
as far as relates to you, at any rate, their insolence is 
innoxious. 

•1^. Eloping that 1 have said enough to indua 

itely about the study of grammar, 1 might 

here leave the subject of learning, arithmetic and 

mnai\ both well learned) as much as 1 would wish 

in a mere youth. But, these need not occupy the 



I.] TO A YOUTH, 39 

whole of your spare time ; and, there are other 
branches of learning which ought immediately to 
follow. If your own calling or profession require 
book-study, books treating of that are to be preferred 
to all others ; for, the first thing, the first object in 
life, is to secure the honest means of obtaining sus- 
tenance, raiment, and a state of being suitable to 
your rank, be that rank what it may: excellence in 
your own calling is, therefore, the first thing to be 
aimed at. After this may come general knowledge, 
and of this, the first is a thorough knowledge of your 
own country ; for how ridiculous it is to see an Eng- 
lish youth engaged in reading about the customs of 
the Chinese, or of the Hindoos, while he is content 
to be totally ignorant of those of Kent or of Corn- 
wall. Well employed he must be in ascertaining how 
Greece was divided, and how the Romans parcelled 
out their territory, while he knows not, and, appa- 
rently, does not want to know, how England came 
to be divided into counties, hundreds, parishes, and 
ti things. 

49. Geography naturally follows Grammar ; 
and, you should begin with that of this kingdom, 
which you ought to understand well, perfectly well, 
before you venture to look abroad. A rather slight 
knowledge of the divisions and customs of other 
countries, is, generally speaking, sufficient ; but, not 
to know these full well, as far as relates to our own 
country, is, in one who pretends to be a gentleman 
or a scholar, somewhat disgraceful. Yet, how many 
men are there, and those called gentlemen too, who 
seem to think that counties and parishes, and 
churches and parsons, and tithes and glebes, and 
manors and courts-leet, and paupers and poor- 
houses, all grew up in England, or dropped down 
upon it, immediately after Noah's flood ! Surely, 
it is necessary for every man, having any preten- 



40 Ami: [Letter 

holarship, to know how ll" 
and, the sooner this knowledge is acquired the betti 
for, until it be acquired, you read the bistort of 
your country in vain. indeed, to communicate 
this knowledge is one main part of the business of 
history; but, it is a part which no historian, com- 
monly 80 called, lias, that I know of, ever vet per- 
formed, except, in part, myself in the History of the 
Protestant Reformation. I had read Humi 
History of England and the continuation by Smol- 
lett; hut. in 1802, when I wanted to write on the 
subject of the non-residence of the clergy, 1 found, to 
my great mortification, that I knew the foundation 
of the office and the claims of the parsons, and that 
1 could not even guess at the origin of parishes* 
This gave a new turn to my inquiries ; and 1 soon 
found the romancers, called historians, had given me 
no information that I could rely on, and, besides, had 
done, apparently, all they could to keep tnc in the dark. 
50. When you come to History, begin also with 
that of your own country; and here it is my bounden 
duty to put you well on your guard; for, iu this re- 
spect, we are peculiarly unfortunate, and for the fol- 
lowing reasons, to which I beg you to attend. 77 
hundred years ago, the religion of England had been, 
during nine hundred years, the Catholic religion ; the 
Catholic Clergy possessed about a third part of all 
the lands and houses, which they held in trust for 
their own support, for the building and repairing of 
churches, and for the relief of the poor, the widow, 
the orphan and the stranger: but, at the time just 
mentioned, the king and the aristocracy changed the 
religion to Protestant, took the estates of the Church 
and the poor to themselves as their own property, and 
d the people a 1 large tor the building and repair- 
of churches and for the relief of the poor. This 
it and terrible change, effected partly by force 



L] TO A YOUTH. 41 

against the people, and partly by the most artful 
means of deception, gave rise to a series of efforts, 
which has been continued from that day to this, to 
cause us all to believe, that that change ivas for the 
better, that it was for our good; and that before that 
time, our forefathers were a set of the most miserable 
slaves that the sun ever warmed with his beams. It 
happened, too, that the art of printing was not dis- 
covered, or, at least, it was very little understood, 
until about the time when this change took place ; so 
that the books relating to former times were confined 
to manuscript; and, besides, even these manuscript 
libraries were destroyed with great care by those who 
had made the change and had grasped the pro- 
perty of the poor and the Church. Our " Historians? ' 
as they are called, have written under fear of the 
powerful, or have been bribed by them ; and, generally 
speaking, both at the same time : and, accordingly, 
their works are, as far as they relate to former 
times, masses of lies unmatched by any others that 
the world has ever seen. 

51. The great object of these lies always has been 
to make the main body of the people believe, that 
the nation is now more happy, more populous, more 
powerful, than it ivas before it ivas Protestant, and 
thereby to induce us to conclude, that it was a good 
thing for us that the aristocracy should take to 
themselves the property of the poor and the Church, 
and make the people at large pay taxes for the sup- 
port of both. This has been, and still is, the great 
object of all those heaps of lies ; and those lies are 
continually spread about amongst us in all forms of 
publication, from heavy folios down to half-penny 
tracts. In refutation of those lies we have only 
very few and rare ancient books to refer to, and 
their information is incidental, seeing that their 
authors never dreamed of the possibility of the 



u ( oi,i,t u Let 

lying generations which were to come* We have the 

ancient Act. of Parliament, the common law, the 

bomSj the canons of the Church; and Hie cku^n 

thciiisch'. s : butj these demand < 1 argument*. 

and they demand also a really ./'*'< and iu^ 

judiced and patient readers. Never in this world, 
before had truth to Struggle with SO many and such 

eat disadvantages ! 

.VJ. To refute lies is not, at present, my bufiin 

but, u is my business to give you, in as small a com- 

>ible, one striking prQof that they are liesj 
and, thereby, to put you well upon your guard for 
the whole 01 the rest pf your lite. The opinion sedu- 
lously inculcated by these "historians" is this: that, 
before the Protestant times came, England was, eom- 

atively, an insignificant country, having few people 
those few wretchedly poor and able* 

Now, take the following undeniable fads. All the 
parishes in England are now (except where they have 
been united, and two, three, or four have been made 
into one), in point of size, what they were a thousand 

rs ago* The county of Norfolk is the best culti- 
vated of any one in England. This county has now 
J.W parishes: and the number was formerly great 
Of these parishes 22 ttace now no diuretics at all; 
71 contain less than 100 souls each; and 2(i^> h. 

parsanqge^houses. Now, observe every parish had, 
in old times, a church and a parsonage-house. The 
county contains 2,092 square miles; thai 

aething less than J square miles to each parish, 
and that is 1,920 statute acres of land; and the - 
of each parish is, on an average, that of a piece of 

>und about one mile and a halt each way; so that 
the churches are, even now, on an average, only 
about a mile and. a half from each other* Now. the 
questions for you to put to yourself are these: AY 
churches formerly built and Jicpt up wit/tout bdiaj 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN, 43 

ivanted, and especially by a poor and miserable people? 
Did these miserable people build 74 churches out of 
731 j each of which 74 had not a hundred souls be- 
longing to it ? Is it a sign of an augmented popu- 
lation, that 22 churches out of 731 have tumbled 
down and been effaced ? Was it a country thinly in- 
habited by miserable jDeople that could build and 
keep a church in every piece of ground a mile and a 
half each way, besides having, in this same county, 
77 monastic establishments and 142 free chapels ? Is 
it a sign of augmented population, ease, and plenty, 
that, out of 731 parishes, 268 have suffered the par- 
sonage-houses to fall into ruins, and their sites to be- 
come patches of nettles and of brambles ? Put these 
questions calmly to yourself: common sense will dic- 
tate the answers ; and truth will call for an expres- 
sion of your indignation against the lying historians 
and the still more lying population-mongers. 



LETTER II. 

TO A YOUNG MAN. 



53. In the foregoing Letter, I have given my ad- 
vice to a Youth. In addressing myself to you, I am 
to presume that you have entered upon your present 
stage of life, having acted upon the precepts con- 
tained in that letter ; and that, of course, you are 
a sober, abstinent, industrious, and well-informed 
young man. In the succeeding letters, which will 
be addressed to the Lover, the Husband, the Father, 
and the Citizen, I shall, of course, have to include 
my notion of your duties as a master, and as a person 



11 COBBETT'a ad\ k i [Letter 

employed by another. In the present letter, there- 
fore, I shall confine myself principally to the con- 
duct of a young man with regard to the management 

of his means, or money. 

5 1. He you in what line of life you may, it Will be 
amongst your misfortunes it' you have not lime pro- 
perly to attend 1o this matter: for. it very frequently 
happens, it lias happened to thousands upon thou- 
sands, not only to be ruined, according to the com- 
mon acceptation of the word; not only to be made 
poor., and to suffer from poverty, in consequence of 
want of attention to pecuniary matters; but it has 
frequently, and even generally, happened, that a 
want of attention to these matters has impeded the 
progress of science, and of genius itself. A man, 
oppressed with pecuniary cares and dangers, must 
be next to a miracle, if he have his mind in a state 
(it for intellectual labours ; to say nothing of the 
temptations arising from such distress, to abandon 
good principles, to suppress useful opinions and 
useful facts; and, in short, to become a disgrace to 
his kindred, and an evil to his country, instead of 
being an honour to the former and a blessing to the 
latter. To be poor and independent is very nearly 
an impossibility. 

55. Hut then, poverty is not a positive, but a re- 
lative term. BuRKK observed, and very truly, that 
a labourer who earned a sufficiency to maintain him 
as a labourer, and to maintain him in a suitable 
manner; to give him a sufficiency of good food, of 
clothing, of lodging, and of fuel, ought not to be 
called a poor man : for that, though he has little 
riches, though his, compared with that of a Lord, 
was a state of poverty, it was not a state of poverty 
in itself. When, therefore, I say that poverty is 
the cause of a depression of spirit, of inactivity and 
of servility in men of literary talent, I must say. at 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 45 

the same time, that the evil arises from their own 
fault ; from their having created for themselves 
imaginary wants ; from their having indulged in 
unnecessary enjoyments, and from their having 
caused that to be poverty, which would not have 
been poverty, if they had been moderate in their 
enjoyments. 

56. As it may be your lot (such has been mine) 
to live by your literary talent, I will, here, before I 
proceed to matter more applicable to persons in 
other states of life, observe, that I cannot form an 
idea of a mortal more wretched than a man of real 
talent, compelled to curb his genius, and to submit 
himself in the exercise of that genius, to those, 
whom he knows to be far inferior to himself, and 
whom he must despise from the bottom of his soul. 
The late Mr. William Gifford, who was the son 
of a shoemaker at Asrburton in Devonshire; who 
was put to school and sent to the University at the 
expense of a generous and good clergyman of the 
name of Cook son, and who died, the other day, 
a sort of whipper-in of Murray's Quarterly 
Review : this was a man of real genius ; and, to 
my certain personal knowledge, he detested, from 
the bottom of his soul, the whole of the paper- 
money and Borough-mongering system, and de- 
spised those by whom the system was carried on. 
But, he had imaginary wants ; he had been bred up 
in company with the rich and the extravagant ; ex- 
pensive indulgences had been made necessary to him 
by habit ; and, when, in the year 1798, or there- 
abouts, he had to choose between a bit of bacon, a 
scrag of mutton, and a lodging at ten shillings a 
week, on the one side, and made-dishes, wine, a rine 
house and a footman, on the other side, he chose the 
latter. He became the servile Editor of Canning's 
Anti-jacobin newspaper : and he who had more wit 



4f> connKTT's advice [Letter 

and Learning than all the rest of the writers put 

ether, became the miserable' tool in circular 
their attacks upon everything that was hostile to a 
teni which lie deplored and detested. Hut. lie 
.red the made-dishes, the wine, thi and 

the coachman. A sinecure as u Clerk ef the fbreipn 
Estreats." gave him 329/, a year, a double commis- 
sionetship of the lottery gave hira 600f. or 7 (H, < / - 
more; and. at: a later period, bis Editorship of I 

Quarterly Review gave him perhaps; h more. 

lie rolled in bis carriage for several years; be fared 
sumptuously; be was buried at Wi&t * Abbey > 

of which his friend and formerly his brother pam- 
phleteer in defence of Pitt, was the Dean : and. 
never is he to be heard of more ! Mr. GlFFORD 
would have been full as happy ; his health would 
have been better, his life longer, and his name would 
have lived for ages,, if he could have turned to the 
bit of bacon and scrag of mutton in 1 ^98 : for 
his learning and talents were such,, his rca- 
so clear and conclusive, and his wit so pointed and 
been, that his writings must have been genefallv 
read, must have been of long duration ; and, indeed, 
must have enabled him (he being always a sh 
man) to live in his latter days in as good style as 
that which he procured by becoming a sinecurist. a 
pensioner and a hack) all which he was from the 
moment he lent himself to the Quarterly Review. 
Think of the mortification oi' such a man, when he 
was called upon to justify the Powcr-oi-imprn 
ment liill in 1817 ! Hut. to go into particulars would 
be tedious : his life was a life of luxurious misery. 
than which a worse is not to be imagined. 

:>7. So that poverty is. except where there is an 
actual want of food and raiment, a thing much more 
imaginary than real. The shame of / the 

shame br being thought poor, is a great and fata] 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 4? 

weakness, though arising, in this country, from the 
fashion of the times themselves. When a good man, 
as in the phraseology of the city, means a rich man 9 
we are not to wonder that every one wishes to be 
thought richer than he is. When adulation is sure 
to follow wealth, and when contempt would be 
awarded to many if they were not wealthy, who are 
spoken of with deference, and even lauded to the 
skies, because their riches are great and notorious ; 
when this is the case, we are not to be surprised 
that men are ashamed to be thought to be poor. 
This is one of the greatest of all the dangers at 
the outset of life : it has brought thousands and 
hundreds of thousands to ruin, even to pecuniary 
ruin. One of the most amiable features in the 
character of American society is this : that men 
never boast of their riches, and never disguise their 
poverty ; but, they talk of both as of any other 
matter, fit for public conversation. No man shuns 
another because he is poor : no man is preferred to 
another because he is rich. In hundreds and hun- 
dreds of instances, men not worth a shilling, have 
been chosen by the people and entrusted with their 
rights and interests in preference to men who ride in 
their carriages. 

58. This shame of being thought poor is not only 
dishonourable in itself, and fatally injurious to men 
of talent; but it is ruinous even in a pecuniary point 
of view, and equally destructive to farmers, traders, 
and even gentlemen of landed estate. It leads to 
everlasting efforts to disguise one's poverty ; the car- 
riage, the servants, the wine (oh, that fatal wine !) 
the spirits, the decanters, the glasses, all the table 
apparatus, the dress, the horses, the dinners, the 
parties, all must be kept up ; not so much because 
he or she who keeps or gives them has any pleasure 
arising therefrom, as because not to keep* and give 



48 COBBRTT's ADVICE [Loiter 

thorn, would give rise to a suspicion of the tyant of 
means SO to give and keep; and thus thousands upon 
thousands are yearly brought into a slate of real 

poverty l>\ their great anxiety not to be tlwught poor* 

Look round von, mark well what you behold, and 
sa\ if this be not the ease. In how mam instances 
have you seen most amiable and even most indus- 
trious families brought to ruin b\ nothing but thi 
Mark it well ; resolve to set tins false shame :il 
defiance, and when you have done that, \ on have 
laid the first stone of the surest foundation of pour 
future tranquillity of mind. There are thousands 
of families, at this very moment, who are thus 
struggling to keep up appearances. The farmei 
accommodate themselves to circumstances more 
easily than tradesmen and professional men. T! 
live at a greater distance from their neighbours : 
thev can change their style of living unperceived ; 
\\\e\ can banish the decanter, change the dishes for 
a bit of bacon, make a treat out of a rasher and 
eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while. 
Rut the tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the 
trader, cannot make the change so quieth and un- 
seen. The. accursed wine, which is a sort of criterion 
of the style of living, a sort of scale to the plan> a 
sort of key to the tune; this is the thing to banish 
first of all ; because all the rest follow, and come 
down to their proper level in a short time. The 
accursed decanter cries footman or waiting-maid, 
puts bells to the side o\' the wall, scream* aloud for 
carpets: and when I am asked, "Lord, what is a 
glass of wine?" my answer is, that, in this country, 
it is everything ; it is the pitcher of the kej ; it 
demands all the other unnecessary expenses; it is 
injurious to health, and must be injurious, even 
bottle of wine that is drunk containing a certain por- 
tion of ardent spirits, besides other drugs deleterious 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 49 

in their nature ; and, of all the friends to the doc- 
tors, this fashionable beverage is the greatest. And, 
which adds greatly to the folly, or, I should say, the 
real vice of using it, is, that the parties themselves, 
nine times out of ten, do not drink it by choice; do 
not like it; do not relish it; but use it from mere 
ostentation, being ashamed to be seen, even by their 
own servants, not to drink wine. At the very mo- 
ment I am writing this, there are thousands of 
families in and near London, who daily have wine 
upon their tables, and who drink it too, merely be- 
cause their own servants should not suspect them to 
be poor, and not deem them to be genteel ; and thus 
families by thousands are ruined, only because they 
are ashamed to be thought poor. 

59. There is no shame belonging to poverty, 
which frequently arises from the virtues of the im- 
poverished parties. Not so frequently, indeed, as 
from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very fre- 
quently. And as the Scripture tells us, that w T e are 
not to a despise the poor because he is poor ;" so 
ought we not to honour the rich because he is rich. 
The true way is, to take a fair survey of the character 
of a man as depicted in his conduct, and to respect 
him, or despise him, according to a due estimate of 
that character. No country upon earth exhibits so 
many, as this, of those fatal terminations of life, called 
suicides. These arise, in nine instances out of ten, 
from this very source. The victims are, in general, 
what may be fairly called insane ; but their insanity 
always arises from the dread of poverty; not from 
the dread of a want of the means of sustaining life, 
or even decent living, but from the dread of being 
thought or known to be poor; from the dread of 
what is called falling in the scale of society; a dread 
which is prevalent hardly in any country but this* 
Looked at in its true light, what is there in poverty 

D 



OOBBETT 9 ! advk [Letter 

to make a man take away his own life? lie is the 

same man that: he was before a he lias the same body 

and the same mind: if he even foresee a ureal; alter- 
ation in his dress or his diet, why should lie kill 
himself on that account? Are these all the things 
that; a man Wishes to live lor ? But, sueh is the fact ; 
so i;reat; is the disgrace upon this country, and so 
numerous and terrible are the evils arising i'rom this 
dread of being thought to be poor. 

60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of their 
means, ought to use them prudently and sparim 
and to keep their expenses always within the bou] 
of their income, be it what it may. One of the 
effectual means of doing this is to purchase with 
ready money. St. Paul says., " Owe no man any- 
thing?* and, of his numerous precepts, this is by no 
means the least worthy of our attention. Credit lias 
been boasted of as a very tine thing ; to decry credit 
seems to be setting oneself up against the opinions 
of the whole world; and I remember a paper in the 
Frebholper or the Spectator, published j 
after the funding system had begun, n 
" Purlic Credit" as a Goddess, enthroned in a 
temple dedicated to her by her votaries, anion 
whom she is dispensing blessings of every descrip- 
tion. It must be more than forty years since I read 
this paper; which I read soon after the time when 
the late Mr. Pitt uttered in Parliament an expres- 

of his anxious hope, thai his * name would be 
u inscribed on the , it which he should raise to 

** public credit J* Time lias taught me, that Pi 

DIT means the contracting of Debts which a 

nation never can pay; and 1 have lived I his 

produce effects, in my country, which Satan 

himself never could have produced. It is a v; 

bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal in her in- 

nee in private than in public affairs. It ha 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 51 

carried in this latter respect to such a pitch, that, 
scarcely any transaction, however low and incon- 
siderable in amount, takes place in any other way. 
There is a trade in London, called the " Tally- 
trade,^ by which household goods, coals, clothing, all 
sorts of things, are sold upon credit, the seller keep- 
ing a tally y and receiving payment for the goods 
little by little ; so that the income and the earnings 
of the buyers are always anticipated ; are always 
gone, in fact, before they come in or are earned ; the 
sellers receiving, of course, a great deal more than 
the proper profit. 

61. Without supposing you to descend to so low 
a grade as this, and even supposing you to be lawyer, 
doctor, parson, or merchant; it is still the same 
thing, if you purchase on credit, and not perhaps in 
a much less degree of disadvantage. Besides the 
higher price that you pay, there is the temptation to 
have what you really do not want. The cost seems a 
trifle, when you have not to pay the money until a 
future time. It has been observed, and very truly 
observed, that men used to lay out a one-pound note 
when they would not lay out a sovereign ; a con- 
sciousness of the intrinsic value of the things pro- 
duces a retentiveness in the latter case more than in 
the former: the sight and the touch assist the mind 
in forming its conclusions, and the one-pound note 
was parted with, when the sovereign would have been 
kept. Far greater is the difference between Credit 
and Ready Money. Innumerable things are not 
bought at all with ready money, which would be 
bought in case of trust : it is so much easier to order 
a thing than to pay for it. A future day ; a clay of 
payment must come, to be sure, but that is little 
thought of at the time ; but if the money were to be 
drawn out, the moment the thing was received or 
offered, this question would arise, " Can I do without 

p 3 



oobbett's advk Lettei 

it ** Is this thing indispensable; am I compelled to 
have it, or, suffer a loss or injury greater in amount 
than tin 4 cost of the thingi [fthis question were put, 
every time ire make a purchase, seldom should we 

hear of those suicides which arc such a disgrace to 

this country. 

62. I am aware that it will be said, and very truly 
said, that, the concerns of merchants ; that the pur- 
chasing of great estates, and various other greai 

transactions, cannot be carried on in this manner: 
but these are rare exceptions to the rule ; even in 

these cases there might be much less of bills and 
bonds, and all the sources of litigation ; hut in the 
everyday business of lite; in transactions with 
ihe butcher, the baker, the tailor, the shoe-maker, 

what excuse can there he for pleading the ex- 
ample of the merchant, who carries on his work- 
by ships and exchanges : 1 was delighted,, some 
time ago, by being told of a young man, who, upon 
being advised to keep a little account of all he re- 
ceived and expended, answered, " that his business 
" was not to keep account-books : that he was sure 
" not to make a mistake as to his income; and, that 
K as to his expenditure, the little bag that held his 
" sovereigns would be an infallible guide, as lie never 
" bought anything that he did not immediately pay 
« for/' 

63. I believe that nobody will deny, that, generally 
speaking, you pay tor the same article a fourth part 
more in the case of trust that you do in the ease of 
ready money. Suppose, then, the baker, butcher, 
tailor and shoemaker, receive from you only one 
hundred pounds a year. Put that together; that 
is to say, multiply twenty-five by twenty, and you 
will find, that at the end (-1' twenty years, you 
have 500/. besides the accumulating and growing 
interest, The lathers of the Church I I mean 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 53 

the ancient ones), and also the canons of the Church, 
forbade selling on trust at a higher price than for 
ready money, which was, in effect, to forbid trust ; 
and this, doubtless, was one of the great objects 
which those wise and pious men had in view ; for, 
they were fathers in legislation and morals as w r ell 
as in religion. But, the doctrine of these fathers 
and canons no longer prevails; they are set at 
naught by the present age, even in the countries 
that adhere to their religion. Addison^s Goddess 
has prevailed over the fathers and the canons ; and 
men not only make a difference in the price regu- 
lated by the difference in the mode of payment ; but 
it would be absurd to expect them to do otherwise. 
They must not only charge something for the want of 
the use of the money ; but they must charge some- 
thing additional for the risk of its loss, which may 
frequently arise, and most frequently does arise, 
from the misfortunes of those to whom they have 
assigned their goods on trust. The man, therefore, 
who purchases on trust, not only pays for the trust, 
but he also pays his due share of what the tradesman 
loses by trust; and, after all, he is not so good a 
customer as the man who purchases cheaply with 
ready money ; for there is his name indeed in the 
tradesman^ book; but with that name the tradesman 
cannot go to market to get a fresh supply. 

64. Infinite are the ways in which gentlemen 
lose by this sort of dealing. Servants go and order, 
sometimes, things not wanted at all ; at other times, 
more than is wanted ; at others, things of a higher 
quality; and all this would be obviated by pur- 
chasing with ready money; for, whether through 
the hands of the party himself, or through those of 
an inferior, there would always be an actual counting 
out of the money ; somebody would see the thing 
bought and see the money paid ; and as the master 



[Letter 

l the bousi ward a b 

a proper value aid just 

it had b 
How is ii thai formers are so i rod show 

sucli a disposition Uj retrench in the article of labour, 
when th n to think little or nothing About the 

sums which tlioy pay in tax upon malt, wine, siu 
tea, soap, candles, tobacco, and various other tilings ? 
You find the utmost difficulty in making them un- 
derstand, that they are affected by these. The rea- 
son is, that they see the money which they give to 
the labourer on each succeeding Saturday night ; but 
they do not see that which they give in taxes on 
the articles before mentioned. Why is it that they 
make such an outcry about the six or seven millions 
a year which are paid in poor-rates, and say not a 
word about the sixty millions a year raised in other 
taxes ? The consumer pays all ; and, therefore, they 
are as much interested in the one as in the other ; 
and yet the farmers think of no tax but the poor- 
tax. The reason is., that the latter is collected from 
them in money ; they see it go out of their hands 
into the hands of another; and, therefore, they are 
everlastingly anxious to reduce the poor-rates, and 
they take care to keep them within the smallest 
possible bounds. 

66, Just thus would it be with every man that 
never purchased but with ready money: he would 
make the amount as low as possible in proportion to 
his means: this care and frugality would make an 
addition to his means, and therefore in the end, at 
the end of his life, he would have had a great deal 
more to spend, and still be as rich, as if he had gone 
intrust: while he would have lived in tranquillity 
all the while: and would have avoided all the end- 
papers and writings and receipts and bills and 



IL] TO A YOUNG MAN. 55 

disputes and lawsuits inseparable from a system of 
credit. This is by no means a lesson of stinginess ; 
by no means tends to inculcate heaping up of 
money ; for, the purchasing with ready money really 
gives you more money to purchase with ; you can 
afford to have a greater quantity and variety of 
things ; and I will engage, that, if horses or servants 
be your taste, the saving in this way gives you an 
additional horse or an additional servant, if you be in 
any profession or engaged in any considerable trade. 
In towns, it tends to accelerate your pace along the 
streets; for, the temptation of the windows is an- 
swered in a moment by clapping your hand upon 
your thigh; and the question, " Do I really want 
that V y is sure to occur to you immediately ; because 
the touch of the money is sure to put that thought 
in your mind. 

6J. Now, supposing you to have a plenty ; to 
have a fortune beyond your wants, would not the 
money, which you would save in this way, be very 
well applied in acts of real benevolence ? Can you 
walk many yards in the streets; can you ride a 
mile in the country ; can you go to half a dozen 
cottages ; can you, in short, open your eyes, with- 
out seeing some human being ; some one born in 
the same country with yourself, and who, on that 
account alone, has some claim upon your good 
wishes and your charity; can you open your eyes 
without seeing some person to whom even a small 
portion of your annual savings would convey glad- 
ness of heart ? Your own heart will suggest the 
answer ; and if there were no motive but this, what 
need I say more in the advice which I have here 
tendered to you. 

68, Another great evil arising from this desire to 
be thought rich ; or, rather, from the desire not to be 
thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been 



< .>.".!>! i i i KDVU [Letter 

oured by the nam bat which 

lit to be < ailed Gambling, k is a purchasing i i 
something which you do not want either in your 
family or in the way of ordinary trade: a something 
to be sold again with a great profit ; and on1 e of 

which there is a considerable hazard. When pur- 
chases of tl are made with ready monev. they 
are not so offensive to reason and not attended with 
such risk; hut when they are made with money > 

d lor the purpose, they are neither more nor less 
than gambling transactions j and they have been, in 
this country, a source oi' ruin, misery, and suicide, 
admitting of no adequate description. I grant that 
tliis gambling lias arisen from the influence of the 
"(' before mentioned: I grant that it has 

arisen from the facility of obtaining the fictitious means 
of making the purchases ; and I grant that that faci- 
lity lias been created by the system under the baneful 
influence of which we live. But, it is not the I 
necessary that I beseech you not to practise such 
gambling j that I beseech you, if you be engaged in 

disentangle yourself from it as soon as you can. 
Your life, while you are thus engaged, is the life of 
the gamester : a life of constant anxiety ; constant 

ire to overreach; constant apprehension; general 

)in ; enlivened, now and then, by a gleam of 

hope or of success. Even that success is sure to 

1 t<> further adventures ; ami, at last, a thousand 
to one, that Your fate is that of the pitcher to the 
well. 

69. The great temptation to this gambling i 
is the case in other gambling, the success of the J 
\s young men, who crowd to the army, in search of 
rank and renown, never look into the ditch that holds 
btered companions ; hut have their I 
itantly fixed on the General-in-Chief; and as 
b of them belongs to the sainc [n • and is 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN* 57 

sure to be conscious that lie has equal merit, every 
one deems himself the suitable successor of him who 
is surrounded with Aides-de-Camps, and who moves 
battalions and columns by his nod ; so with the 
rising generation of " speculators ;" they see the 
great estates that have succeeded the pencil-box and 
the orange-basket ; they see those whom nature and 
good laws made to black shoes, sweep chimneys or 
the streets, rolling in carriages, or sitting in saloons 
surrounded by gaudy footmen with napkins twisted 
round their thumbs ; and they can see no earthly 
reason why they should not all do the same; forget- 
ting the thousands and thousands who, in making 
the attempt, have reduced themselves to that beggary 
which, before the attempt, they would have regarded 
as a thing wholly impossible. 

70. In all situations of life, avoid the trammels of 
the law. Man's nature must be changed before 
lawsuits will cease ; and, perhaps, it would be next 
to impossible to make them less frequent than they 
are in the present state of this country ; but, though 
no man, who has any property at all, can say that he 
will have nothing to do with lawsuits, it is in the 
power of most men to avoid them in a considerable 
degree. One good rule is to have as little as pos- 
sible to do with any man who is fond of lawsuits; 
and who, upon every slight occasion, talks of an ap- 
peal to the law. Such persons from their frequent 
litigations, contract a habit of using the technical 
terms of the courts, in which they take a pride, and 
are, therefore, companions peculiarly disgusting to 
men of sense. To such men a lawsuit is a luxury, 
instead of being, as it is to men of ordinary minds, 
a source of anxiety and a real and substantial scourge* 
Such men are always of a quarrelsome disposition, 
and avail themselves of every opportunity to indulge 
in that which is mischievous to their neighbours. In 

d 5 



( DBA i i "s aiivk [Lettei 

thoi lul- 

gence of m re said to 

brin mother ; and to bar 

their poorer neighbours firom motivt ure re- 

ge. They have carried tliis their disposition with 
them to America ; for which reason no one likes to 
live in a (Jcrman neighbourhood. 

71. Before you go to law consider well tbe I 
if you will your suit and are poorer than y 
before, what do you accomplish? You only imb 
a little additional anger against your opponent; you 
injure him but do barm to yourself. Better to put 
up with tbe loss of one pound than two. to which 
latter is to be added all tbe loss of time ; all the 
trouble, and all tbe mortification and anxiety attend- 
ing a lawsuit. To set an attorney to work to worry 
and torment another man is a very base act ; to 
alarm his family as well as himself, while you are 
sitting quietly at home. If a man owe you money 
which he cannot pay. why add to his distress without 
the chance of benefit to yourself ? Thousands of 
men have injured themselves by resorting to the law; 
while very few ever bettered themselves by it, ex- 
cept such resort were unavoidable. 

7-. Nothing is much more discreditable than 
what is called hard (fettling. They say of the Turks, 
that they know nothing of two \ une 

article : and that to ask an abatement of the lov 

j)kecpcr is to insult him. It would be well if 

Christians imitated Mahometans in this respect. To 

one price and take another, or to otter one price 

and give another, besides the loss oi that it 

occa honourable to the parties, and 

racially When pushed to the exfo -olemn pro- 

testations. It is. in fact, a species of lying; and it 
answers no one advantageous purpose to either buyer 
dkr. I hope that every young man, who reads 



IL] TO A YOUNG MAN* 59 

this, will start in life with a resolution never to 
higgle and lie in dealings. There is this circumstance 
in favour of the booksellers business : every book 
has its fixed price., and no one ever asks an abate- 
ment. If it were thus in all other trades, how much 
time would be saved, and how much immorality pre- 
vented ! 

73. As to the spending of your time, your busi- 
ness or your profession is to claim the priority of 
every thing else. Unless that be duly attended to, 
there can be no real pleasure in any other employ- 
ment of a portion of your time. Men, however, 
must have some leisure, some relaxation from busi- 
ness; and in the choice of this relaxation, much of 
your happiness will depend. Where fields and gar- 
dens are at hand, they present the most rational 
scenes for leisure. As to company, I have said 
enough in the former letter to deter any young man 
from that of drunkards and rioting companions ; 
but, there is such a thing as your quiet "pipe and 
pot companions" which are, perhaps, the most fatal 
of all. Nothing can be conceived more dull, more 
stupid, more the contrary of edification and rational 
amusement, than sitting, sotting, over a pot and 
a glass, sending out smoke from the head, and 
articulating, at intervals, nonsense about all sorts 
of things. Seven years service as a galley-slave 
would be more bearable to a man of sense, than 
seven months confinement to society like this. Yet, 
such is the effect of habit, that, if a young man 
become a frequenter of such scenes, the idle pro- 
pensity sticks to him for life. Some companions, 
however, every man must have ; but, these every 
well-behaved man will find in private houses, where 
families are found residing, and where the suitable 
intercourse takes place between women and men. 
A man that cannot pass an evening without drink 



60 ( OBBJE i i ADVK [L- | 

03 ui i the name oi a sot. Why should there be 
drink for the purpose of carrying on conversation? 
ind in need of no drink to stimulate them 
to converse ; and I have a thousand times admired 
th< n patience in sitting quietly at their work, while 
their husbands arc !, in the same room, with 

bottles and glasses before them, thinking nothing 
of the expense, and still Less of the shame which 
the distinction reflects upon them. We have to 
thank the women for many things, and particularly 
for their sobriety, for fear of following their example 
in which men drive them i'rom the table, as if they 
said to them, 4 * You have had enough ; food is suf- 
** Jicienl for you; but we must remain to iill OUT- 

elves with drink, and to talk in L which 

" your ears ought not to endure." When women are 
getting up to retire from the table, men rise in ho- 
nour of them ; but they take special care not to 
follow their excellent example. That which is not 
fit to be uttered before women is not lit to be uttered 
at all; and it is next to a proclamation, tolerating 
drunkenness and indecency, to send women from the 
table the moment they have swallowed their food. 
The practice has been ascribed to a desire to leave 
them to themselves; but why should they be left to 
themselves? Their conversation is always the most 
lively, while their persons are generally the most 
ble objects. No: the plain truth is, that it is 
love of the drink and of the indecent talk that 
send women from the table; and it is a practice 
which 1 have always abhorred. I like to see young 
men, especially, follow them out of the room, and 
prefer their company to that of the sots who are left 
behind. 

]' \. Another mode of spending the leisure time is 
that of books. Rational and well-informed compa- 
nions may be still more instructive j but, books 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 61 

never annoy ; they cost little ; and they are always 
at hand, and ready at your call. The sort of books 
must, in some degree, depend upon your pursuit in 
life ; but there are some books necessary to every 
one who aims at the character of a well-informed 
man. I have slightly mentioned History and 
Geography in the preceding letter ; but I must here 
observe, that as to both these, you should begin with 
your own country, and make yourself well ac- 
quainted, not only with its ancient state, but with 
the origin of all its principal institutions. To read 
of the battles which it has fought, and of the in- 
trigues by which one king or one minister has suc- 
ceeded another, is very little more profitable than 
the reading of a romance. To understand well the 
history of the country, you should first understand 
how it came to be divided into counties, hundreds, 
and into parishes ; how judges, sheriffs and juries 
first arose ; to what end they were all invented, and 
how the changes with respect to any of them have 
been produced. But, it is of particular consequence, 
that you ascertain the state of the people in former 
times, which is to be ascertained by comparing the 
then price of labour with the then price of food. You 
hear enough, and you read enough, about the glorious 
mars in the reign of King Edward the Third ; 
and it is very proper that those glories should be 
recorded and remembered ; but you never read, in 
the works of the historians, that, in that reign, a 
common labourer earned threepence-halfpenny a clay ; 
and that a fat sheep was sold, at the same time, for 
one shilling and twopence, and a fat hog, two years 
old, for three shillings and fourpence, and a fat goose 
for twopence-halfpenny. You never read, that wo- 
men received a penny a day for hay-making or 
weeding in the corn, and that a gallon of red wine 
was sold for fourpence. These are matters which 



62 < OBB] [Lei 

bave deemed bo be beneath then i 

but, th< o!' real importance ; they are 

matt lit to haw practical effect at this 

time : furnish the criterion whereby 

are to judge of our condition compared with that of 

our forefathers. The poor-rates form a great fea- 
ture in the laws and customs of this country. Put 
to a thousand perse is who have read what is called 
the History of England; put to them the question, 
how the poor-rates came ; and nine hundred and 
ninety-nine of the thousand will tell you, that they 
know nothing at all of the matter. This is not his- 
tory ; a list of battles and a string of intrigues are 
not history,, they communicate no knowledge appli- 
cable to our present state: and it really is better to 
amuse oneself with an avowed romance, which latter 
is a great deal worse than passing one's time in 
counting the trees. 

/5. History has been described as affording argu- 
ments of experience; as a record of what has been., 
in order to guide us as to what is likely to be., or 
what Ought to be; but from this romancing history, 
no such experience is to be derived: for it furnishes 
no facts on which to found arguments relative to the 
ting or future state of things. To come at the 
true history of a country you must read its laws : 
you must read books treating of its usages and eu>- 
tomsj in former times ; and you must particularly 
inform yourself as to prices of labour and &f fotid* 
By I the single Act of the 'J.Jrd year of Bl>- 

wahi) the Third, specifying the price of labour at 
that time ; by reading an Act of Parliament passed 
itl the 24 th year Of llKXitY the EIGHTH : by reading 
the* . and then reading the PltECtoeu*! of 

BlftttOfe FliEBTM 000, which shows the price of food 
in the former reign, you come into full possession of 
the knowledge of what England was in former times. 



II.] TO A YOUNG MAN. 63 

Divers books teach how the divisions of the country- 
arose, and how its great institutions were established ; 
and the result of this reading is a store of know- 
ledge, which will afford you pleasure for the whole of 
your life. 

76. History, however, is by no means the only 
thing about which every man's leisure furnishes 
him with the means of reading; besides which, 
every man has not the same taste. Poetry, Geo- 
graphy, Moral Essays, the divers subjects of Phi- 
losophy, Travels, Natural History, books on Sciences; 
and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is 
before you; but there is one thing always to be 
guarded against ; and that is, not to admire and 
applaud anything you read, merely because it is the 
fashion to admire and applaud it. Read, consider 
well what you read, form your own judgment, and 
stand by that judgment in despite of the sayings of 
what are called learned men, until fact or argument 
be offered to convince you of your error. One writer 
praises another; and it is very possible for writers 
so to combine as to cry down and, in some sort, to 
destroy the reputation of any one who meddles with 
the combination, unless the person thus assailed be 
blessed with uncommon talent and uncommon per- 
severance. When I read the works of Pope and of 
Swift, I was greatly delighted with their lashing 
of Dennis ; but wondered, at the same time, why 
they should have taken so much pains in running 
down such a fool. By the merest accident in the 
world, being at a tavern in the woods of America, I 
took up an old book, in order to pass away the time 
while my travelling companions were drinking in 
the next room ; but, seeing the book contained the 
criticisms of Dennis, I was about to lay it down, 
when the play of "Cato" caught my eye; and, 
having been accustomed to read books in which this 



64 COBBET1 

play waa laudi d to the skies, and knowing it to have 
been written by A.ddison, ever) line <>f whose w< 
I had been taught to believe teemed with wisdom 
and genius, I condescended to begin to read; though 
the work was from the pen of that fool Dennis* I 
read on, and soon began to laugh) nut at Dennis but 

at Addison. J laughed so much and so loud, that 
the landlord; who was in the passage, came in to see 
what I was laughing at. In short, 1 found it a most 
masterly production, one of the most witty thi 
that 1 had ever read in my lite. I was delighted 
with Dennis, and was heartily ashamed of my 
former admiration of Cato, and felt no little resent- 
ment against Pope and Swift for their endless .re- 
viling of this most able and witty critic. This, as 
far as J recollect, was the first emancipation that had 
istcd me in my reading. 1 have, since that time, 
never taken anything upon trust ; I have judged for 
myself, trusting neither to the opinions of writers nor 
in the fashions of the day. Having been told by 
Dr. .Blair, in his lectures on Rhetoric, that, if I 
meant to write correctly, I must "give my days and 
"• nights to Ajddison/' I read a few numbers of the 
Spectator at the time I was writing my English 
Grammar; 1 gave neither my nights nor my days to 
him; but I found an abundance of matter to allord 
examples of false grammar; and, upon a re-peru- 
I found that the criticisms of Dennis might have 
been extended to this book too. 

77- But that which never ought to have been for- 
gotten by those who were men at the time, and that 
which ought to be made known to every nan 

of the present day, in order that he may be induced to 
exercise his own judgment with regard to book-, is, 
the transactions relative to the writings of Shak- 
akk. which transactions took place about thirty 
years ago. It is still, and it was then much more. 



IL] TO A YOUNG MAN. 65 

the practice to extol every line of Shakspeare to 
the skies : not to admire Shakspeare has been 
deemed to be a proof of want of understanding and 
taste. Mr. Garrick, and some others after him, 
had their own good and profitable reasons for crying 
up the works of this poet. When I was a very 
little boy, there was a jubilee in honour of Shak- 
speare, and as he was said to have planted a mul- 
berry-free, boxes, and other little ornamental things 
in wood, were sold all over the country, as having 
been made out of the trunk or limbs of this ancient 
and sacred tree. We Protestants laugh at the relics 
so highly prized by Catholics ; but never was a 
Catholic people half so much duped by the relics of 
saints, as this nation was by the mulberry-tree, of 
which, probably, more wood was sold than would 
have been sufficient in quantity to build a ship of 
war, or a lai'ge house. This madness abated for some 
years ; but, towards the end of the last century, it 
broke out again with more fury than ever. Shak- 
peare^s works were published by Boyd ell, an 
Alderman of London, at a subscription of Jive 
hundred pounds for each copy, accompanied by 
plates, each forming a large picture. Amongst the 
madmen of the day was a Mr. Ireland, who 
seemed to be more mad than any of the rest. His 
adoration of the poet led him to perform a pil- 
grimage to an old farm-house, near Stratford-upon- 
Avon, said to have been the birth-place of the poet. 
Arrived at the spot, he requested the farmer and 
his wife to let him search the house for papers, 
first going upon his knees? and praying, in the poetic 
style, the gods to aid him in his quest. He found 
no papers ; but he found that the farmer's wife, in 
clearing out a garret some years before, had found 
some rubbishy old papers which she had burnt, 
and which had probably been papers used in the 



OOBBE ir ! .. :»\ [( [Let' 

vrrapping up of pigs 3 cheeks, to keep then fVotn the 

Ionian !" exclaimed lie ; k - do 
q know what you have done V "Ode* 

oman, half ned out of her wits: 

I . for the papers were very old; I 

dare ay as old as the house itself." This threw him 
into an additional degree of ( ', as it ife now 

fashionably called; he raved, lie stamped, he foamed, 
and at; Inst quitted t lie house, covering the poor 

nan with e\ tn of reproach ; and had 

book to Stratford, took post-chaise for London, to 
relate to his brother madmen the horrible sacrilege 
this heathenish woman. Unfortunately for Mr. Ii 
land, unfortunately for his learned brothers in the 
metropolis, and unfortunately for the reputation of 
Shakspbarbj Mr. Ireland took with him to the 
scene of his adoration a son, about striven years of 
, who was articled to an attorney in London. 
The son was by no means so sharply bitten as the 
father; and, upon returning to town, he conceived 
the idea of supplying the. jifa.ee of the invaluable pq 
which the farm-house heathen had destroyed. lie 
thought, and he thought rightly, that he should 1 
little difficulty ill writing plays jn.st lit 

ere ! To get paper that should seem to have 
been made in the reign of Queen Elizaukth. and 

that should give to writing the appears 
having the same age, was somewhat difficult; but 
both were overcome. fbutig Irkland was ac- 
quainted with a son of a bookseller, who dealt in old 
hooks : the blank leaves of th. applied the 

young author with paper : and he found out the way 
of 1 proper ink for his pur] To work he 

(1 other 

things; and, having got a Bible, extant in the time of 

3PEARE; he 8 in the margin. All 

these, together wit: $ in abundance, and other 



IL] TO A YOUNG MAN. 67 

little detached pieces, he produced to his father, 
telling him he got them from a gentleman, who had 
made him swear that he ivotdd not divulge his name. 
The father announced the invaluable discovery to 
the literary world ; the literary world rushed to him ; 
the manuscripts were regarded as genuine by the 
most grave and learned doctors, some of whom (and 
amongst these were Doctors Parr and Warton) 
gave, under their hands, an opinion., that the manu- 
scripts must have been written by Shakspeare ; for 
that no other man in the world could have been capable 
of writing them ! 

78. Mr. Ireland opened a subscription, pub- 
lished these new and invaluable manuscripts at an 
enormous price ; and preparations were instantly 
made for performing one of the plays, called Vorti- 
gern. Soon after the acting of the play, the indis- 
cretion of the lad caused the secret to explode ; and, 
instantly, those who had declared that he had written 
as well as Shakspeare, did everything in their 
power to destroy him! The attorney drove him 
from his office ; the father drove him from his house ; 
and, in short, he was hunted down as if he had been 
a malefactor of the worst description. The truth 
of this relation is undeniable ; it is recorded in num- 
berless books. The young man is, I believe, yet 
alive ; and, in short, no man will question any one of 
the facts. 

79. After this, where is the person of sense who 
will be guided in these matters by fashion ? where 
is the man, who wishes not to be deluded, who will 
not, when he has read a book, judge for himself? 
After all these jubilees and pilgrimages ; after Boy- 
deli/s subscription of 500/. for one single copy; 
after it had been deemed almost impiety to doubt of 
the genius of Shakspeare surpassing that of all 
the rest of mankind 5 after he had been called the 



68 cobbbtt*b advice Letter 

u I " as a tnattei ol < oui e speak 

losi and Aaron, there having been bu< oin 
each in the world; after all this, comes a lad of six- 
teen years of age, writes thai which learned doctors 
declare could have been written by no man but 
Shakspeare, and when it is discovered that thifl 
laughing boy is the real author, the DOCTOH turn 
round upon him, with all the newspapers, magazines, 
and reviews* and, of course, the public at their back, 

revile him as an impostor ; and, under that odious 
name, hunt him out oi' society, and doom him to 
starve! This lesson, at any rate, lie has given US, 
not to rely on the judgment of Doctors and other 
pretenders to literary superiority. Every young man, 
when he takes up a book for the first time, ought to 
remember this story; and if lie do remember it, he 
Mill disregard fashion with regard to the book, and 
will pay little attention to the decision of those who 
call themselves critics. 

80. I hope that your taste will keep you aloof 
from the writings of those detestable villains, who 
employ the powers oi' their mind in debauching the 
minds of others, or in endeavours to do it. They 
present their poison in such captivating forms, that 
it requires great virtue and resolution to withstand 
their temptations ; and, they have, perhaps, done a 
thousand times as much mischief in the world, as 
all the infidels and atheists put together. Th( 
men ought to be called literary pimps ; they ought 
to be held in universal abhorrence, and never spoken 
ot but with execration. Any appeal to bad passions 
is to be despised; any appeal to ignorance and pre- 
judice ; but here is an appeal to the frailties of 
human nature, and an endeavour to make the mind 
Corrupt, just as it is beginning to possess its powers. 
1 never have known any but bad men, WOlthL 
men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who 



II.] TO A YOTTNG MAN. 69 

took delight in, or even kept in their possession, 
writings of the description to which I here allude. 
The writings of Swift have this blemish; and, 
though he is not a teacher of lewdness^ but rather 
the contrary, there are certain parts of his poems 
which are much too filthy for any decent person to 
read. It was beneath him to stoop to such means 
of setting forth that wit which would have been far 
more brilliant without them. I have heard, that, in 
the library of what is called an "illustrious person/ 5 
sold some time ago, tfrere was an immense collection 
of books of this infamous description ; and from this 
circumstance, if from no other, I should have formed 
my judgment of the character of that person. 

81. Besides reading, a young man ought to write, 
if he have the capacity and the leisure. If you wish 
to remember a thing well, put it into writing, even 
if you burn the paper immediately after you have 
done ; for the eye greatly assists the mind. Memory 
consists of a concatenation of ideas, the place, the 
time, and other circumstances, lead to the recol- 
lection of facts ; and no circumstance more effectually 
than stating the facts upon paper. A Journal, 
should be kept by every young man. Put down 
something against every day in the year, if it be 
merely a description of the weather. You will not 
have done this for one year without finding the 
benefit of it. It disburdens the mind of many things 
to be recollected; it is amusing and useful, and 
ought by no means to be neglected. How often does 
it happen that we cannot make a statement of facts, 
sometimes very interesting to ourselves and our 
friends, for the w T ant of a record of the places where 
we were, and of things that occurred on such and 
such a day ! How often does it happen that we 
get into disagreeable disputes about things that have 
passed, and about the time and other circumstances 



/(> co»Bfl i vh [Letter 

meting them! As a thing of men 

- value, and !in\ frequently prove of v. 

at utility. It demands not more than a minute 
in the twenty-four hours; and that minute is m 

eeably and advantageously employed. It tends 
produce ril y i i I he conducting 

affairs : it is a thing demandii I porti 

. ntiun once in every day; I myself have found it 
to be attended with < id numerous benefits, 

and I therefore sir nd it to t h 



LETTE R II I. 

TO A LOVER. 



82. There are two descriptions of Lovers on 
whom all advice would be wasted: namely, those in 
whose minds passion so wholly overpowers reason 
as to deprive the party of his sober 
people are entitled to more compassion than 
men thus affected] it is a species of insanity i 

ii!s them; and. when it produces self-, on. 

which it does in England mo than in 

all tiie Other countries in the world put t« 
mortal remains of the sulfjrer ought t bit with 

in as tender a manner as that of which tin 
merciful construction of the law will allow. [fSm 
Sam i Bl as they were, in 

id as those of a pere m labouring under 
til <il ih ' surely -nth 

who d( stroys Ins life on aeeount of unrequib 

lit to be considered in as mild a ^n: 



III.] TO A LOVER* 71 

Samuel was represented, in the evidence taken be- 
fore the Coroner's Jury, to have been inconsolable 
for the loss of his ivife : that this loss had so dread- 
ful an effect upon his mind, that it bereft him of his 
reason, made life insupportable, and led him to com- 
mit the act of suicide : and, on this ground alone, his 
remains and his estate were rescued from the awful, 
though just and wise, sentence of the law. But, un- 
fortunately for the reputation of the administration 
of that just and wise law, there had been, only about 
two years before, a poor man, at Manchester, buried 
in cross roads, and under circumstances which entitled 
his remains to mercy much more clearly than in the 
case of Sir Samuel Romilly. 

83. This unfortunate youth, whose name was 
Smith, and who was a shoemaker, was in love with a 
young woman, who, in spite of all his importunities 
and his proofs of ardent passion, refused to marry 
him, and even discovered her liking for another ; and 
he, unable to support life, accompanied by the 
thought of her being in possession of anybody but 
himself, put an end to his life by the means of a 
rope. If, in any case, we are to presume the exist- 
ence of insanity ; if, in any case, we are led to believe 
the thing ivithout positive proof ; if, in any case, there 
can be an apology in human nature itself, for such an 
act ; this ivas that case. We all know (as I observed 
at the time); that is to say, all of us who cannot 
wait to calculate upon the gains and losses of the 
affair ; all of us, except those who are endowed with 
this provident frigidity, know well what youthful 
love is ; and what its torments are, when accom- 
panied by even the smallest portion of jealousy. 
Every man, and especially every Englishman (for 
here we seldom love or hate by halves), will recol- 
lect how many mad pranks he has played ; how 
many wild and ridiculous things he has said and 



7- COOTETT** \i>vi< [Letter 

done between the age of sixteen and that of twenty- 
twos how many times a kind glance has scatte 
all his reasoning and resolutions to the winds; how 

many times a cool look lias plunged him into the 
deepest misery I Poor Smith, who was at tins age of 
lore and madness, might, surely, be presumed to 
have done the i\c<(\ in a moment of u temporary 

mental derangement" He was an object of comp 

sion in every humane breast : he had parents and 
brethren and kindred and friends to lament his 
death, and to feel shame at the disgrace inflicted on 
his Lifeless body : yet UK was pronounced to be a 
felo de se 3 or sclf-nmrderer, and his body was put into 
a bole by the way-side, with a stake driven down 
through it; while that of RoMILLY had mercy 
tended to it, on the ground that the act had been 
occasioned by " temporary menial derangement" 
caused by his grief for the death of his wife ! 

St. To reason with passion like that of the unfor- 
tunate Smith, is perfectly useless; you may, with 
as much chance of success, reason and remonstrate 
witli the winds or the waves: if you make impres- 
sion, it lasts but for a moment: your effort; like an 
inadequate stoppage of waters, only adds, in the 
end, to the violence of the torrent : the current must 
have and will have its course, be the consequences 
what they may. In eases not quite so decided. 
absence, the sight of new faces, the sound of new 
voices, generally serve, if not as a radical cure, b 
mitigation, at least, of the disease. Hut the worst of 
it is, that, on this point, we have the girls (and 
women too") against us! For they look upon it 
right that every lover should be a I'd tie maddish ; 
and every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom 
imposed by their charms, they look upon as an overt 
act of treason against their natural sovereignty. No 
girl ever liked a young man less for his having d< 



& 



III.] TO A LOVER. 73 

things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she 
was sure that love of her had been the cause: let 
her but be satisfied upon this score, and there are 
very few things which she will not forgive. And, 
though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great 
and sound philosopher after all : for, from the nature 
of things, the rearing of a family always has been, is, 
and must ever be, attended with cares and troubles, 
which must infallibly produce, at times, feelings to 
be combated and overcome by nothing short of that 
ardent affection which first brought the parties to- 
gether. So that, talk as long as Parson Malthus 
likes about " moral restraint ;" and report as long 
as the Committees of Parliament please about pre- 
venting " premature and improvident marriages" 5 
amongst the labouring classes, the passion that they 
would restrain, while it is necessary to the existence 
of mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations 
for the inevitable cares, troubles, hardships, and 
sorrows of life ; and, as to the marriages, if they 
could once be rendered universally provident, every 
generous sentiment would quickly be banished from 
the world. 

85. The other description of lovers, with whom it 
is useless to reason, are those who love according to 
the rules of arithmetic, or who measure their matri- 
monial expectations by the chain of the land surveyor* 
These are not love and marriage; they are bargain 
and sale. Young men will naturally, and almost 
necessarily, fix their choice on young women in 
their own rank in life, because from habit and inter- 
course they will know them best. But, if the length 
of the girPs purse, present or contingent, be a con- 
sideration with the man, or the length of his purse, 
present or contingent, be a consideration with her, 
it is an affair of bargain and sale. I know that 
kings, princes and princesses, are, in respect of 

E 



7-1 corrett's Aiivn [Letter 

marri;v_ nl by the law : I know that 

nobles, it" not thus restrained by positive law. are 

trained, in feet, by the their order. 

And 1 B disadvantage whicbj as far as real 

enjoyment of i d, more than count 

balances all the advao that they possess over 

the rest of the community. This disadvantage. 
nerallv speaking, pursue- rank and riches down- 
wards, till you approach very nearly to that nume- 
rous who live by manual labour, becoming 
however less and I you descend. You gene- 
rally find even very vulgar rich men making a sacri- 
fice of their natural and rational taste to their mean 
and ridiculous pride, and thereby providing 
themselves an ample supply of misery for life. By 
preferring ' marriages'' to marriages of 
love, they think to secure themselves against all the 
evils of poverty ; but. // poverty mhm, and come it 
may, and frequently does, in spite of the best-laid 
plans, and best modes of conduct; if poverty a 
then where is the counterbalance for that ardent 
mutual affection, which troubles, and losses, and 
crosses, always increase rather than diminish, and 
which, amidst all the calamities that can befal a 
man, whispers to his heart, that his best possession 
is still left him unimpaired : The Worcestershire 
Baronet, who has had to endure the sneers of fools 
on account of his marriage with a beautiful and vir- 
tuous servant-maid, would, were the present ruinous 
measures of the Government to drive him from his 
mansion to a cottage, still have a source of happi- 
ness ; while many of those who might fall in com- 
pany with him, would, in addition to all their other 
troubles, have, perhaps, to endure the reproaches of 
wives to whom poverty, or even humble life, would 
be insupportable. 

;. If marrying iov the sake of money be. under 



III.] TO A LOVER. 7^ 

any circumstances, despicable, if not disgraceful : if 
it be, generally speaking, a species of legal prosti- 
tution, only a little less shameful than that which, 
under some governments, is openly licensed for the 
sake of a tax; if this be the case generally, what 
ought to be said of a young man, who, in the hey- 
day of youth, should couple himself on to a libidi- 
nous woman, old enough, perhaps, to be his grand- 
mother, ugly as the night-mare, offensive alike to 
the sight and the smell, and who should pretend to 
love her too ; and all this merely for the sake of her 
money ? Why, it ought, and it, doubtless, would 
be said of him, that his conduct was a libel on both 
man and woman-kind; that his name ought, for 
ever, to be synonymous with baseness and nastiness, 
and that in no age and in no nation, not marked by 
a general depravity of manners, and total absence of 
all sense of shame, every associate, male or female, of 
such a man, or of his filthy mate, would be held 
in abhorrence. Public morality would drive such a 
hateful pair from society, and strict justice would 
hunt them from the face of the earth. 

87- Buonaparte could not be said to marry for 

money, but his motive was little better. It was for 

dominion, for power, for ambition, and that, too, of 

the most contemptible kind. I knew an American 

gentleman, with whom Buonaparte had always 

been a great favourite; but the moment the news 

arrived of his divorce and second marriage, he gave 

him up. This piece of grand prostitution was too 

much to be defended. And the truth is, that 

Buonaparte might have dated his decline from 

the day of that marriage. My American friend 

said, " If I had been he, I would, in the first place, 

" have married the poorest and prettiest girl in all 

* France." If he had done this, he would, in all 

probability, have now been on an imperial throne 

e 3 



7*; cohbett's advick [Letter 

instead of being eaten by worms, at the bottom of a 
very deep hole in St. Helena: whence, however, 

his hones convey to the world the moral, that to 
marry for money, for ambition, or t'rom any motive 
other than the one pointed out by affection, is not 
the road to glory, to happiness, or to peaee. 

88. Let me now turn from these two descriptions 
of lovers, with whom it is useless to reason, and ad- 
dress myself to you. my reader, whom I suppose to 
be a real lover, bul not so smitten as to he b< 

your reason. You should never forget, that mar- 
riage, which is a state that every young person 
ought to have in view, is a thing to last for lif 
and that, generally speaking, it is to make life hapjjij. 
or miserable; for, though a man may bring Ins mind 
*o something nearly a state of indifference^ even 
/hut is misery, except with those who can hardly be 
reckoned among sensitive beings. Marriage brings 
numerous cares, which are amply compensated by 
the more numerous delights which are their com- 
panions. But to have the delights, as well as the 
cares, the choice of the partner must be fortunate, 
say fortunate ; for, after all, love, real love, impassioned 
affection, is an ingredient so absolutely necessary, that 
no perfect reliance can be placed on the judgment. 
Yet, the judgment may do something ; reason may 
have some influence; and, therefore, I here otter you 
my advice with regard to the exercise of that reason. 

89. The things which vou ought to desire in a wife 
are — 1. Chastity ; 2. sobriety; 3. industry; 4. fru- 
gality; 5. cleanliness ; o". knowledge of domestic 
affairs; 7- good temper; 8. beauty. 

90. 1. CHASTITY, perfect modesty, in word, deed, 
and even thought, is so essential, that, without it. 
no female is tit to he a wife. It is not enough that 

t jTOUng w.»mau abstain from every thing approach- 

towardc indecorum in her behaviour i 



III.] TO A LOVER. 77 

men ; it is, with me 5 not enough that she cast down 
her eyes, or turn aside her head with a smile, when 
she hears an indelicate allusion: she ought to ap- 
pear not to understand it, and to receive from it no 
more impression than if she were a post. A loose 
woman is a disagreeable acquaintance : what must she 
be, then, as a ivife ? Love is so blind, and vanity- 
is so busy in persuading us that our own qualities 
will be sufficient to ensure fidelity, that we are very 
apt to think nothing, or, at any rate, very little of 
trifling symptoms of levity : but if such symptoms 
show themselves now, we may be well assured, that 
we shall never possess the power of effecting a cure. 
If prudery mean false modesty, it is to be despised ; 
but if it mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, 
1 confess that I like it. Your "free and hearty " girls I 
have liked very well to talk and laugh with; but 
never, for one moment, did it enter into my mind 
that I could have endured a "free and hearty 5 * girl 
for a wife. The thing is, I repeat, to last for life ; 
it is to be a counterbalance for troubles and misfor- 
tunes; and it must, therefore, be perfect, or it had 
better not be at all. To say that one despises jealousy- 
is foolish : it is a thing to be lamented ; but the very 
elements of it ought to be avoided. Gross indeed 
is the beast, for he is unworthy the name of man ; 
nasty indeed is the wretch, who can even entertain a 
thought of putting himself between a pair of sheets 
with a wife of whose infidelity he possesses the 
proof ; but, in such cases, a man ought to be very slow 
to believe appearances; and he ought not to decide 
against his wife but upon the clearest proof. Thfe 
last, and, indeed, the only effectual safeguard, is to 
begin well ; to make a good choice ; to let the begin- 
ning be such as to render infidelity and jealousy next 
to impossible. If you begin in grossness ; if you 
couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken 



COB&J ' [Letter 

the imlural and j< 
!hii a /' he realm, v. ho had not been 

tunate in his matrimonial i wasttrgii 

Major (\\rtwuk;mt to seek for nothing mure than 

<7V reform" the Major (forgetting the domestic 

[instances of liis Lordship) asked him how lie 

should relish "toGdefbte i&hastity'Mn a wife! The 

bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is 

icient to excite disgust. Yet with this ' (de 

w * chastity" you must be, and ought to be, content, 
if you have entered into marriage with one, in whom 
you have ever discovered the slightest approach 
towards lewdness, cither in deeds, words, or looks. 
To marrv has been vour own act; vou have made 
the contract for your own gratification; you knew 
the character of the other party; and the children, if 
any, or the community, are not to be the sufferers for 
your gross and corrupt passion. "Moderate chas- 
"tity" is all that you have, in fact, contracted for: 
you have it, and you have no reason to complain. 
When 1 come to address myself to the husband, I 
shall have to say more upon this subject, which 1 
dismiss for the present with observing, that my ob- 
servation has convinced me, that, when families are 
rendered unhappy from the existence of "moderate 
" chastity," the fault, first or last, has been in the 
man, ninety-nine times out of every hundred. 

91. Sobriety. By sobriety I do not mean merely 
an absence of drinking to a state of intoxication; for, 
if that be hateful in a man, what must it be in a 
woman ! There is a Latin proverb which says, that 
wine, that is to say, intoxication, brings forth truth. 
Whatever it may do in this way in men, in women 
it is sure, unless prevented by age or by salutary 
Ugliness, to produce a moderate, and a very moderate 
portion of chastity. There never was a drunken 
woman, a woman who loved strong drink, who was 



III.] TO A LOVER. 79 

chaste, if the opportunity of being the contrary pre- 
sented itself to her. There are cases where health 
requires wine, and even small portions of more 
ardent liquor ; but (reserving what I have further to 
say on this point, till I come to the conduct of the 
husband) young unmarried women can seldom stand 
in need of these stimulants ; and, at any rate, only in 
cases of well-known definite ailments. Wine ! " only 
a glass or tivo of witie at dinner, or so!" As soon 
as have married a girl whom I had thought liable to 
be persuaded to drink, habitually, " only a glass or 
two of wine at dinner, or so f as soon as have 
married such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet 
from the streets. And it has not required age to give 
me this way of thinking : it has always been rooted in 
my mind from the moment that I began to think the 
girls prettier than posts. There are few things so 
disgusting as a guzzling woman. A gormandizing 
one is bad enough \ but, one who tips off the liquor 
with an appetite, and exclaims "Good! good P* by a 
smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel. There 
may be cases, amongst the hard labouring-women, 
such as reapers, for instance, especially when they 
have children at the breast; there may be cases, 
where very hard- working women may stand in need of a 
little good beer ; beer which, if taken in immoderate 
quantities, would produce intoxication. But, while 
I only allow the possibility of the existence of such 
cases, I deny the necessity of any strong drink at all 
in every other case. Yet, in this metropolis, it is the 
general custom for tradesmen, journeymen, and even 
labourers, to have regularly on their tables the big 
brewers' poison, twice in every day, and at the rate of 
not less than a pot to a person, women as well as 
men, as the allowance for the day. A pot of poison 
a day, at five-pence the pot, amounts to seven pounds 
and two shillings in the year ! Man and wife suck 



BO COBBJBTtrfp ADVICE [Letter 

down, »n this way, fourteen pounds four shilling* 
yeai ' Is it any wonder that they arc: clad in n 
that they are skin and bone* and that their children 
are covered with filth ! 

92. But by the word Sobriety, in a young wo- 
man* I mean a great deal more than even a rigid 
abstinence from that love of drink which I am not 
to suppose* and which I do not believe, to exist any- 
thing like generally amongst the young women of 
this country. I mean a great deal more than this; 
I mean sobriety of conduct. The word saber, and 
its derivatives* do not confine themselves to matters 
of drink; they express steadiness, seriousness, care- 
fulness, scrupulous propriety of conduct ; and they 
are thus used amongst country people in many parts 
of England. When a Somersetshire fellow makes 
too free with a girl, she reproves him with, " Come ! 
be sober !" And when we wish a team, or any- 
thing, to be moved on steadily and with great care, 
we cry out to the carter or other operator, " Soberly, 
soberly " Now, this species of sobriety is a great 
qualification in the person you mean to make your 
wife. Skipping, capering* romping, rattling girls 
are very amusing, where all costs and other conse- 
quences are out of the question ; and they may be- 
come sober in the Somersetshire sense of the word. 
But while you have no certainty of this, you have a 
presumptive argument on the other side. To be 
sure when girls are mere child nn, the\ are to play 
and romp like children. But* when they arrive at 
that age which turns their thoughts towards that sort 
of connection which is to be theirs for life ; when 
they begin to think of having the command of a 
house* however small or poor, it is time for them to 
east away the levity of the child. It is natural, nor 
is it vcr\ wrong* that I know of, tor children to like 
to gad about and to see all sorts of strange sights. 



III.] TO A LOVER. 81 

though I do not approve of this even in children t 
but, if I could not have found a young ivoman (and 
I am sure I never should have married an old one) 
who I was not sure possessed all the qualities ex- 
pressed by the word sobriety, I should have remained 
a bachelor to the end of that life ? which, in that 
case, would, I am satisfied, have terminated with- 
out my having performed a thousandth part of 
those labours which have been, and are, in spite of 
all political prejudice, the wonder of all who have 
seen, or heard of them. Scores of gentlemen have, 
at different times, expressed to me their surprise, 
that I was " always in spirits ;" that nothing pulled 
me down; and the truth is, that, throughout nearly 
forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, assailed 
all the while by more numerous and powerful ene- 
mies than ever man had before to contend with, and 
performing, at the same time, labours greater than 
man ever before performed ; all those labours re- 
quiring mental exertion, and some of them mental 
exertion of the highest order ; the truth is, that, 
throughout the whole of this long time of troubles 
and of labours, I have never known a single hour of 
real anxiety ; the troubles have been no troubles to 
me ; I have not known what lowness of spirits 
meaned ; have been more gay, and felt less care, 
than any bachelor that ever lived. " You are always 
in spirits, Cobbett !" To be sure ; for why should I 
not ? Poverty I have always set at defiance, and I 
could, therefore, defy the temptations of riches ; and, 
as to home and children, I had taken care to pro- 
vide myself with an inexhaustible store of that 
" sobriety " which I am so strongly recommending 
my reader to provide himself with ; or, if he cannot 
do that, to deliberate long before he ventures on the 
life-enduring matrimonial voyage. This sobriety is 
a title to trust-ivorthiness ; and this, young man, is 

e 5 



< oiii;i i I - ADV1 [Letter 

the treasure that you ought to prize Par above all. 

others. Miserable is the husband, who, when he 

the threshold of his house^ carries with htm 

doubts and fears and suspicions. 1 do not mean 
ticions of the fidelity of Ids wife, but df I 

care, frugality, attention to his interests, and to the 
health and morals of his children. Miserable is the 
man, who cannot leave all unlocked, and who is not 
Sttre, quite certain, that all is as sate as if grasped in 
his own hand. He is the happy husband, who can 
away, at a moment's warning, leaving his house 
and his family with as little anxiety as he quits an 
inn, not more fearing to find, on his return, any- 
thing wrong than he would fear a discontinuance 
of the rising and setting of the sun, and if, as in my 
case, leaving books and papers all lying about at 
sixes and sevens, finding them arranged in proper 
order, and the room, during the lucky interval, freed 
from the effects of his and his ploughman's or 
gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no real 
cares: such a man has no troubles: and this is the 
sort of life that I have led. I have had all the nu- 
merous and indescribable delights of home and 
children, and at the same time, all the bachelor's 
freedom from domestic cares : and to this cause, far 
more than to any other, my readers owe those la- 
bours, which I never could have performed, if even 
the slightest degree of want of confidence at home 
had ever once entered into my mind. 

93. But, in order to possess this precious ft 

rthiness, you must, if you can. exercise your 

in the choice of your partner. If she be vain 

ut her person, very fond of dress, fund of flattery, at 

all given to gadding about, fond of what are called 

of ple< or coquettish, though in the 

b< degree : it' ciiher of these she never will be 

trustworthy; she cannot change her nature; and ij 



III.] TO A LOVER. 63 

you marry her, you will be unjust if you expect 
trustworthiness at her hands. But, besides this, 
even if you find in her that innate "sobriety" of 
which I have been speaking, there requires on your 
part, and that at once too, confidence and trust 
without any limit. Confidence is, in this case, no- 
thing unless it be reciprocal. To have a trustworthy 
wife, you must begin by showing her, even, before 
you are married, that you have no suspicions, no 
fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a man 
has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on ac- 
count of his querulous conduct. All women despise 
jealous men ; and, if they marry such, their motive 
is other than that of affection. Therefore, begin by 
proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as example may 
serve to assist precept, and as I never have preached 
that which I have not practised, I will give you the 
history of my own conduct in this respect. 

94. When I first saw my wife, she was thirteen 
years old, and I was within about a month of twenty- 
one. She was the daughter of a Sergeant of Artil- 
lery, and I was the Sergeant-Major of a regiment of 
Foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. 
John, in the Province of New Brunswick. I sat in 
the same room with her, for about an hour, in com- 
pany Avith others, and I made up my mind that she 
was the very girl for me. That I thought her beau- 
tifuHs certain, for that I had always said should be 
an indispensable qualification ; but I saw in her what 
I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which 
I have said so much, and which has been by far the 
greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of 
winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on 
the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was 
my habit, when I had done my morning^ s writing, to 
go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the 
foot of which our barracks lay. In about three 



84 COBBI i i - v inn i. [Letter 

mornings afto i I bad first seen her, I had; by an in- 
vitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men 
to join me in my walk; and our road lav by the 
house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, 
hut she was out on the snow, scrubbing out a wash- 
ing-tub. "That's the girl for me/' said 1, when we 
had got out of her hearing. One of these young 
men came to England soon afterwards; and he, who 
!)s an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston, at 
the time of the election, to verify whether 1 were the 4 
same man. When lie found that J was, he appeared 
surprised ; but what was his surprise, when I told 
him that those tall young men, whom he saw around 
me, were the sons of that pretty little girl that he 
and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow 
in New Brunswick at daybreak in the mornin 

95. From the day that I first spoke to her, 1 never 
had a thought of her ever being the wife of any other 
man, more than 1 had a thought of her being trans- 
formed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my re- 
solution at once, to marry her as soon as we could 
get permission, and to get out of the army as soon as 
1 could. So that this matter was, at once, settled as 
firmly as if written in the book of (ate. At the end 
of about six months, my regiment, and I along with it, 
were removed to Fredkhicktox, a distance of a 
hum/red milvs, up the river of St. John ; and, which 
was worse, the artillery was expected to go oil' to 
England a year or two before our regiment! The 
artillery went, and she along with them ; and now 
it was that 1 acted a part becoming a real and 
Bible lover. I was aware that, when she got to 
that gay place Wooi-WICH, the house of her father 
and mother, necessarily visited by numerous pen 
not the most select, might become unpleasant to 
her, and 1 did not like, besides, that she should con- 
tinue to work hard. I had saved a hundred and fifty 



III.] TO A LOVER* 85 

guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing 
for the paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in 
addition to the savings of my own pay. / sent her 
all my money, before she sailed ; and wrote to her to 
beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, 
to hire a lodging with respectable people : and, at 
any rate, not to spare the money, by any means, but 
to buy herself good clothes, and to live without 
hard work, until I arrived in England ; and I, in 
order to induce her to lay out the money, told 
her that I should get plenty more before I came 
home. 

96. As the malignity of the devil would have it, 
we were kept abroad two years longer than our time, 
Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as she 
is now) having knocked up a dust with Spain about 
Nootka Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, 
and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid ! At the 
end of four years, however, home I came 3 landed at 
Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army 
by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward Fitz- 
gerald, who was then the Major of my regiment. 
I found my little girl a servant of all work (and hard 
work it was), at five pounds a year, in the house of 
a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a 
word about the matter, she put into my hands the 
whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken ! 

97. Need I tell the reader what my feelings were ? 
Need I tell kind-hearted English parents what effect 
this anecdote must have produced on the minds of 
our children ? Need I attempt to describe what 
effect this example ought to have on every young 
woman who shall do me the honour to read this 
book ? Admiration of her conduct, and self-gratula- 
tion on this indubitable proof of the soundness of 
my own judgment, were now added to my love of her 
beautiful person. 



86 COBBfel [Letter 

98. Now, I do not say that there are not many 
cmg women of this country who would, Qtl< 

similar circumstances^ have acted as my wifa did 

in this case ; on the contrary, 1 hope, and do sin- 
cerely believe, that there are. But when kei > 
considered ; when we reflect, that she was living 
in a place crowded, literally eriWtffaf, with gaily- 
dressed and handsome young men, many of whom 
really far richer and in higher rank than I was. and 
res of them ready to oiler her their hand ; when 
we reflect that she was living amongst young women 
who put upon their backs every shilling that they 
could come at; when we see her keeping the bag of 
gold untouched; and working hard to provide her- 
self with but mere necessary apparel, and doing 
this while she was passing from fourteen to e'tgh' 
years of age ; when we view the whole of the cir- 
cumstances, we must say that here is an example, 
which, while it reflects honour on her sex, ought to 
have weight with every young woman whose eyes or 
ears this relation shall reach. 

99. If any young man imagine, that this great 
sobriety of conduct in young women must be accom- 
panied with seriousness approaching to gloom, he 
is, according to my experience and observation, 
very much deceived. The contrary is the fact ; for 
I have found that as, amongst men, your jovial com- 
panions arc, except over the bottle, the dullest and 
most insipid of souls; so amongst women, the g 
the rattling, and laughing, are, unless some party 
of plea ure, or something out of domestic life, is 

>n, generally in the dumps and blue-devils. 
Some stimulus is always craved after by this de- 
iptiori of women; some sight to be seen, some- 
thing to see or hear other than what is to be found 
at Jiome, which, as it affords no incitement, nothing 
u lu raise and keep njj the spirits" is looked upon 



IIL] TO A LOVEB. 87 

merely as a place to be at for want of a better ; 
merely a place for eating and drinking, and the like ; 
merely a biding place, whence to sally in search of 
enjoyments. A greater curse than a wife of this 
description, it would be somewhat difficult to find ; 
and, in your character of Lover, you are to provide 
against it. I hate a dull, melancholy, moping thing : 
I could not have existed in the same house with 
such a thing for a single month. The mopers are, 
too, all giggle at other times ; the gaiety is for others, 
and the moping for the husband, to comfort him, 
happy man, when he is alone : plenty of smiles and 
of badinage for others, and for him to participate 
with others ; but the moping is reserved exclusively 
for him. One hour she is capering about, as if re- 
hearsing a jig ; and, the next, sighing to the motion 
of a lazy needle, or weeping over a novel : and this 
is called sentiment ! Music, indeed ! Give me a 
mother singing to her clean and fat and rosy baby, 
and making the house ring with her extravagant 
and hyperbolical encomiums on it. That is the 
music which is " the food of love,*" and not the 
formal, pedantic noises, an affectation of skill in 
which is now-a-days the ruin of half the young 
couples in the middle rank of life. Let any man ob- 
serve, as I so frequently have with delight, the exces- 
sive fondness of the labouring people for their chil- 
dren. Let him observe with what pride they dress 
them out on a Sunday, with means deducted from 
their own scanty meals. Let him observe the hus- 
band, who has toiled all the week like a horse, nursing 
the baby, while the wife is preparing the bit of din- 
ner. Let him observe them both abstaining from a 
sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings 
of hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of 
their demeanour, the real mutual affection, evinced, 
not in words, but in unequivocal deeds. Let him 



C0BBBT1 J3VICE [Letter 

observe these things, and, having then cast a look at 
the lives of the great and wealthy, he will say, with 

mr, tlial when man is choosing his partner tor lite, 
the dread of poverty OUght to be cast to the \vind>. 

A labourer's cottage, on a Sunday ; the husband or 
wife having a baby in arms, looking at two or three 
older ones playing between the flower-borders going 
from the wieket to the door, is, according to my 
taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever be- 
held ; and, it is an object to be beheld in no country 
upon earth but in England. In France, a labourer's 
cottage means a shed with a dung heap before the 
door; and it means much about the same in Ame- 
rica^ where it is wholly inexcusable. In riding 
once, about live years ago, from Petworth to Hors- 
ham, on a Sunday in the afternoon, I came to a 
solitary cottage which stood at about twenty yards 
distance from the road. There was the wife with 
the baby in her arms, the husband teaching another 
child to walk, while four more were at play before 
them. I stopped and looked at them for some time, 
and then, turning my horse, rode up to the wicket, 
getting into talk by asking the distance to Horsham. 
I found that the man worked chiefly in the woods, 
and that he was doing pretty well. The wife was 
then only ttrenhj-tivo, and the man only twenty-five* 
She was a pretty woman, even for Sussex, which, 
not excepting Lancashire, contains the prettiest 
women in England. He was a very tine and stout 
young man. " Why/* said 1, " how many children 
do you reckon to have at last?" "I do not care 
how many/* said the man: "God never sends 
mouths without sending meat." " Did you ever 
hear," said I, "of one PARSON M ALT HI s ;' u No, 
Sir." " Why, if he were to hear of your works, lie 
u would be outrageous ; for he wants an act of par- 
•• liament to prevent poor people from marrying 



III.] TO A LOVER. 89 

iC young, and from having such lots of children/* 
" Oh ! the brute V* exclaimed the wife; while the 
husband laughed, thinking that I was joking. I 
asked the man whether he had ever had relief from 
the parish; and upon his answering in the negative, 
I took out my purse, took from it enough to bait 
my horse at Horsham, and to clear my turnpikes to 
Worth, whither I was going in order to stay awhile, 
and gave him all the rest. Now, is it not a shame, 
is it not a sin of all sins, that people like these 
should, by acts of the Government, be reduced to 
such misery as to be induced to abandon their 
homes and their country, to seek, in a foreign land, 
the means of preventing themselves and their chil- 
dren from starving? And this has been, and now is, 
actually the case with many such families in this same 
county of Sussex ! 

100. An ardent-minded young man ( who, by- the- 
bye, will, as I am afraid, have been wearied by this 
rambling digression) may fear, that this great so- 
briety of conduct in a young woman, for which I 
have been so strenuously contending, argues a want 
of that warmth, w r hich he naturally so much desires ; 
and, if my observation and experience warranted 
the entertaining of this fear, I should say, had I to 
live my life over again, give me the warmth, and I 
will stand my chance as to the rest. But, this ob- 
servation [and this experience tell me the contrary ; 
they tell me that levity is, ninety-nine times out of 
a hundred, the companion of a ivant of ardent feeling. 
Prostitutes never love, and, for the far greater part, 
never did. Their passion, which is more mere ani- 
mal than any thing else, is easily gratified; they, 
like rakes, change not only without pain, but 
w T ith pleasure ; that is to say, pleasure as great as 
they can enjoy. Women of light minds have seldom 
any ardent passion ; love is a mere name, unless con- 



90 ( obbett's advk [Lettei 

lined to one object j and young women, in whom 
levity of OOndud i v > 6bl enable, will not be thus re- 
stricted. I do not, however, recommend ayoutig man 

to be too *d'< re in judging, where the eondurt does 

not go beyond tnere levity, and is not bordering ott la 

conduct; lor something depends here upon consti- 
tution and animal spirits, and something also upon 
the manners bf the country. That levity, which in 
a French girl L should not have thought a great deal 
of, would have frightened me away from an English 
or an American girl. When 1 was in France, just 
after I was married, there happened to be amongst 
our acquaintance a gay, sprightly girl, of about 
seventeen. 1 was remonstrating with her, one day, 
on the facility with which she seemed to shift her 
smiles from object to object; and she, stretching 
one arm out in an upward direction, the other in a 
downward direction, raising herself upon one foot, 
leaning her body on one side, and thus throwing 
herself into a Jlfjiur/ attitude, answered my grave 
lecture by singing, in a very sweet voice (signifi- 
cantly bOwing her head and smiling at the same 
time), the following lines from the vaudeville, in the 
play of Figaro : 

Si ramour a ties a'dlvs ; 
N'est CC pas pour colU'jcr? 

That is, if love has wingi, is it not to fuller about 
With? The wit, argument, and manner, all together, 

silenced me. She, after I left France, married a 
very worthy man, has had a large family, and has 
been, and is, a most excellent wife and mother. 
But that which does sometimes well in France, does 
not do here at all. Our manners are more grave : 
steadiness is the rule, and levity the exception. 
Love may voltiye in France ; but, in England, it 



III.] TO A LOVER. 91 

cannot, with safety to the lover : and it is a truth 
which, I believe, no man of attentive observation will 
deny, that, as, in general, English wives are more ivarm 
in their conjugal attachments than those of France, so, 
with regard to individuals, that those English women 
who are the most light in their manners, and who are the 
least constant In their attachments, have the smallest 
portion of that ivarmih, that indescribable passion 
which God has given to human beings as the great 
counterbalance to all the sorrows and sufferings of life. 

101. Industry. By industry, I do not mean 
merely laboriousness, merely labour or activity of 
body, for purposes of gain or of saving ; for there 
may be industry amongst those w T ho have more 
money than they know w r ell what to do with : and 
there may be lazy ladies, as well as lazy farmers 5 
and tradesmen's wives. There is no state of life in 
which industry in the wife is not necessary to the 
happiness and prosperity of the family, at the head 
of the household affairs of which she is placed. If 
she be lazy, there wall he lazy servants, and which 
is a great deal v/orse, children habitually lazy : 
every thing, however necessary to be done, will be 
put off to the last moment: "then it will be done 
badly, and in many cases not at all ; the dinner will 
be too late; the journey or the visit will be tardy; 
inconveniences of all sorts will be continually arising: 
there will always be a heavy arrear of things unper- 
formed ; and this, even amongst the most wealthy of 
all, is a great curse ; for if they have no business 
imposed upon them by necessity, they make business 
for themselves ; life would be unbearable without it : 
and therefore a lazy woman must always be a curse, 
be her rank or station what it may. 

102. But, ivho is to tell wdiether a girl will make 
an industrious woman ? How is the purblind lover 
especially, to be able to ascertain whether she, 



COBBI i i - u>\ i< i [Letter 

whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips li 
half bereft him of his senses ; how is he to be able to 

judge from any thing that he can Bee, whether the 

beloved object will be industrious or lazy J Why, 
it is very difficult : it is a matter that reason lias very 
little to do with ; but there are, nevertheless, certain 
outward and visible Signs, from which a man, not 
wholly deprived of the use of his reason, may form 
a pretty accurate judgment as to this matter. It 
was a story in Philadelphia, some years ago, that a 
young man, who was courting one of three sisters, 
happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three 
were present, and when one said to the others, w I 
wonder where OUT needle is. 55 Upon which he with- 
drew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of 
politeness, resolved never to think more of a girl who 
possessed a needle only in partnership, and who, it 
appeared, was not too well-informed as to the place 
where even that share was deposited. 

103. This was, to be sure, a very flagrant instance 
of a want of industry; for, if the third part of the 
use of a needle satisfied her when single, it was rea- 
sonable to anticipate that marriage would banish 
that useful implement altogether. But such in- 
stances are seldom suffered to come in contact with 
the eyes and ears of the lover, to disguise all defects 
from whom is the great business, not only of the girl 
herself but of her whole family. There are, however, 
certain outward signs, which, if attended to with care, 
will serve as pretty sure guides. And, first, if you 
find the tongue lazy, you may be nearly certain that 
the hands and feet are the same. By laziness of the 
tongue J do not mean silence; I do not mean an 
absence of talk, for that is, in most cases, very good; 
but, 1 mean a slow and soft utterance ; a sort of 
sighing out of the words instead of speaking them: a 
sort of letting the sounds fall out, as if the party were 



HI.] TO A LOVER. 93 

sick at stomach. The pronunciation of an indus- 
trious person is generally quick, distinct, and the 
voice, if not strong, firm at the least. Not mascu- 
line ; as feminine as possible ; not a croak nor a bawl, 
but a quick, distinct, and sound voice. Nothing is 
much more disgusting than what the sensible 
country-people call a maw-mouthed woman. A maw- 
mouthed man is bad enough: he is sure to be a lazy 
fellow : but, a woman of this description, in addition 
to her laziness, soon becomes the most disgusting of 
mates. In this whole world nothing is much more 
hateful than a female's under-jaw, lazily moving up 
and down, and letting out a long string of half- 
articulate sounds. It is impossible for any man, who 
has any spirit in him, to love such a woman for any 
length of time. 

104. Look a little, also, at the labours of the teeth, 
for these correspond with those of the other mem- 
bers of the body, and with the operations of the 
mind. " Quick at meals, quick at work" is a say- 
ing as old as the hills, in this, the most industrious 
nation upon earth ; and never was there a truer say- 
ing. But fashion comes in here, and decides that 
you shall not be quick at meals ; that you shall sit 
and be carrying on the affair of eating for an hour, 
or more. Good God ! what have I not suffered on 
this account ! However, though she must sit as 
long as the rest, and though she join in the per- 
formance (for it is a real performance) unto the end 
of the last scene, she cannot make her teeth abandon 
their character. She may, and must, suffer the slice 
to linger on the plate, and must make the supply 
slow, in order to fill up the time; but when she does 
bite, she cannot well disguise what nature has taught 
her to do ; and you may be assured, that if her jaws 
move in slow time, and if she rather squeeze than 
bite the food ; if she so deal with it as to leave you in 



C0BB1 DVK i [Letter 

doubt as to whether she moan finally to admit or 
reject it ; it' she deal with it thus, set, her down 

beings in her very nature,, incorrigibly lazy. Xc 
mind the pieces of needle-work, the tambouring, the 
maps of the world made by her needle, 
her at work upon a mutton-chop, or a bit of bread 
and cheese; and, if she deal (juiekly with these, you 
have a pretty good Security for that activity, that 
stirring industry, without which a wii burden 

instead of being a help. And, as to love, it cannot 
live for more than a month or two (in the breast of a 
man of spirit) towards a lazy woman. 

]0.">. Another mark of industry is, a quick 
and a somewhat heavy tread, showing that the foot 
comes down with a hearty good will ; and if the body 
lean a litle forward, and the eyes keep steadily in t lie 
same direction, while the feet are going, so much the 
better, for these discover earnestness to arrive at the 
intended point. I do not like, and I never liked, 
your sauntering, soft-stepping girls, who move as it' 
they were perfectly indifferent as to the result ; and, 
as to the tore part of the story, whoever expects 
ardent and lasting affection from one of these saunt- 
ering girls, will, when too late, find his mistake : 
the character runs the same all the way through ; 
and no man ever yet saw a sauntering girl, who did 
not, when married, make a mawkish wife, and a cold- 
hearted mother; cared very little for either by hus- 
band or children ; and, of course, having no store of 
those blessings which arc the natural resources to 
apply to in sickness and in old age. 

1()(>. Early firing is another mark of industry; 
and though, in the higher situations of life, it may 
be n{ no importance in a mere pecuniary point of 
view, it is, even there, of importance in other re- 
spects: for it is, 1 should imagine, pretty difficult 
to keep love alive towards a woman who 



HI.] TO A LOVER, 95 

the deiv, never beholds the rising sun, and who con- 
stantly comes directly from a reeking bed to the 
breakfast-table, and there chews about without ap- 
petite the choicest morsels of human food. A man 
might, perhaps, endure this for a month or two, 
without being disgusted ; but that is ample allow- 
ance of time. And as to people in the middle rank 
of life, where a living and a provision for children is 
to be sought by labour of some sort or other, late 
rising in the wife is certain ruin; and never was 
there yet an early rising wife, who had been a late 
rising * girl. If brought up to late rising, she will 
like it; it will be her habit; she will, when mar- 
ried, never want excuses for indulging in the habit ; 
at first she will be indulged without bounds ; to 
make a change afterwards will be difficult ; it will be 
deemed a wrong done to her; she will ascribe it to 
diminished affection ; a quarrel must ensue, or, the 
husband must submit to be ruined, or, at the very 
least, to see half the fruit of his labour snored and 
lounged away. And, is this being rigid ? is it being 
harsh ? is it being hard upon women ? Is it the 
offspring of the frigid severity of age ? It is 
none of these : it arises from an ardent desire to 
promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, 
legitimate, and salutary influence of the female sex. 
The tendency of this advice is to promote the pre- 
servation of their health ; to prolong the duration 
of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the 
last day of their lives; and to give them, during 
the whole of those lives, weight and consequence, of 
which laziness would render them wholly unworthy. 
107. Frugality. This means the contrary of 
extravagance. It does not mean stinginess ; it does 
not mean a pinching of the belly, nor a stripping of 
the back; but it means an abstaining from all un- 
necessary expenditure, and all unnecessary use of 



MS cobbett's advice [Letter 

goods of any and of every sort ; and a quality of 
great importance it is, whether the rank in lite be 
high or low. Some people are, indeed, so rich, they 
have such an overabundance of money and goods, 

that how to get rid of them would, to a looker-on, 
seem to he their only difficulty. Hut while tins in- 
convenience of even these immense masses is not too 
great to he overcome by a really extravagant woman, 
who jumps with joy at a basket of strawberries at a 
guinea an ounce, and who would not give a straw far 
green peas later in the year than January; while 
such a dame would lighten the bags of a loan- 
monger, or shorten the rent-roll of half-a-dozen 
peerages amalgamated into one possession, she 
would, with very little study and application of her 
talent, send a nobleman of ordinary estate to the 
poor-house or the pension-list, which last may be 
justly regarded as the poor-book of the aristocracv. 
How many noblemen and gentlemen, of fine estates, 
have been rained and degraded by the extravagance 
of their wives ! More frequently by their oum extra- 
vagance, perhaps ; but, in numerous instances, by 
that of those whose duty it is to assi ! in upholding 
their stations by husbanding their fortunes. 

10S. If this be the case amongst the opulent, who 
have estates to draw upon, what must be the conse- 
quences of a want of frugality in the middle and 
lower ranks of life ? Here it must be fatal, and es- 
pecially amongst that description of persons whose 
wives have, in many cases, the recek well as 

the expending of money. In such a ease, there wants 
nothing but extravagance in the wife to make ruin as 
sure as the arrival of old age. To obtain security 

Bins! this is verv difficult ; yet, if the lover he not 
(juti. . he may easily discover a ity to- 

ward* extravagance. The object of his ad 
will, nine times <>ut of ten. not be the ma >f a 



III.] TO A LOVER. 97 

house; but she must have her dress, and other little 
matters under her control. If she be costly in these ; 
if, in these, she step above her rank or even to the 
top of it ; if she purchase all she is able to purchase, 
and prefer the showy to the useful, the gay and the 
fragile to the less sightly and more durable, he may 
be sure that the disposition will cling to her through 
life. If he perceive in her a taste for costly food, 
costly furniture, costly amusements ; if he find her 
love of gratification to be bounded only by her want 
of means : if he find her full of admiration of the 
trappings of the rich, and of desire to be able to 
imitate them, he may be pretty sure that she will not 
spare his purse, when once she gets her hand into 
it; and, therefore, if he can bid adieu to her charms, 
the sooner he does it the better. 

109. The outward and visible and vulgar signs 
of extravagance are rings, brooches, bracelets, buckles, 
necklaces, diamonds (real or mock), and, in short, all 
the hard-ware which women put upon their persons. 
These things may be proper enough in palaces, or in 
scenes resembling palaces ; but, when they make 
their appearance amongst people in the middle rank 
of life, where, after all, they only serve to show that 
poverty in the parties which they wish to disguise : 
when the nasty, mean, tawdry things make their 
appearance in this rank of life, they are the sure in- 
dications of a disposition that will always be straining 
at ivhat it can never attain. To marry a girl of this 
disposition is really self-destruction. You never can 
have either property or peace. Earn her a horse to 
ride, she will want a gig : earn the gig, she will want 
a chariot : get her that, she will long for a coach and 
four : and, from stage to stage, she will torment you 
to the end of her or your days : for still there will be 
somebody with a finer equipage than you can give 
her ; and, as long as this is the case, you will never 

f 



98 COBBM I ■ ' I r l( [Letter 

have rest Reason would tell her, that slie could 
never be al the top; that she must Btop at some 
point short of that; and that, thert !i expen 

in the riralship are so much thrown away. But, 

reason and brooches and bracelets do not go in com- 
pany : the girl who has not the sense to perceive thai 

her person is disfigured, and not beautified, by pare 

of brass and tin (for they are generally little better] and 

Other hardware, stuck about her body ; the girl that 

is so foolish as not to perceive, that, when silks and 
cot (ons, and cambrics, In their neatest form, h; 
done their best, nothing more is to be done; the 
girl that cannot perceive this is too great a fool to be 
ted with the purse of any man. 

110. Cleanliness. This is a capital ingredient ; 
for there never yet was, and there never will be. l< 

of long duration, sincere and ardent love, in any man, 
towards a "filthy mate" I mean any man in Eng* 
land, or in those parts of America where the people 
have descended from the English. 1 do not say, that 
there arc not men enough, even in England, to live 
peaceably and even contentedly, with dirty, sluttish 
women ; for there arc some who seem to like the 
filth well enough. But what I contend for is this: 
that there never can exist, for any length of time, 
ardent affection in any man towards a woman who is 
filthy either in her person, or in her house affairs. 
Men may be careless as to their own persons; they 
may, from the nature of their buBineSBj or from their 
want of time to adhere to neatness in dress, be 
slovenly in their own dress and habits ; but, they do 
not relish this in their wives, who must still have 
charms ; and charms and filth do not go together. 

111. It is not dress that the husband wants to be 
perpetual: it is not finery; but daintiness in every 
thing. The French women dress enough, especially 
when they sally forth. My excellent neighbour. 



III.] TO A LOVER. 99 

Mr. John Tredwell, of Long Island, used to say, 
that the French were "pigs in the parlour, and pea- 
" cocks on the promenade -" an alliteration which 
" Canning's self" might have envied! This 
occasional cleanliness is not the thing that an English 
or an American husband wants : he wants it always : 
indoors as well as out; by night as well as by day ; 
on the floor as well as on the table ; and, however he 
may grumble about the "fuss" and the "expense" 
of it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I 
once saw a picture representing the amusements of 
Portuguese Lovers ; that is to say, three or four 
young men, dressed in gold or silver laced clothes, 
each having a young girl, dressed like a princess, and 
affectionately engaged in hunting down and killing 
the vermin in his head! This was, perhaps, an 
exaggeration; but that it should have had the shadow 
of foundation, was enough to fill me with contempt for 
the whole nation. 

112. The signs of cleanliness are, in the first place, 
a clean skin. An English girl will hardly let her 
lover see the stale dirt between her fingers, as I have 
many times seen it between those of French women, 
and even ladies, of all ages. An English girl will 
have her face clean, to be sure, if there be soap and 
water within her reach; but, get a glance, just a 
glance, at her poll, if you have any doubt upon the 
subject; and if you find there, or behind the ears, 
what the Yorkshire people call grime, the sooner you 
cease your visits the better. I hope now, that no 
young woman will be offended at this, and think me 
too severe on her sex. I am only saying, I am only 
j telling the women, that which all men think ; and, it 
i is a decided advantage to them to be fully informed 
of our thoughts on the subject. If any one, who 
shall read this, find, upon self-examination, that she 

f 2 



100 COBBETT'fl AD VIC R [Letter 

is defective in this respect, there is plenty of time for 
correcting the defect. 

113. In the dress you can, amongst rich people, 
find little whereon to form a judgment as to cleanli- 
ness, because they have not only the dress prepared 
for them, but put upon them into the bargain. But. 
in the middle rank of life, the 4 dress is a good crite- 
rion in two respects; first, as to its colour; for, if the 
white be a sort of yellow, cleanly hands would have 
been at work to prevent that. A white-yellow cravat, 
or shirt, on a man, speaks at once the character of 
his wife; and, be you assured, that she will not take 
with your dress pains which she has never taken with 
her own. Then, the manner of put tiny on the dress 
is no bad foundation for judging. If it be careless, 
slovenly, if it do not fit properly. No matter for its 
mean quality : mean as it may be, it may be neatly 
and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of 
yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a 
sloven in one thing is a sloven in all things. The 
country people judge greatly from the state of the 
covering of the ankles, and if that be not clean and 
tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what 
it ought to be. Look at the shoes! If they be 
trodden on one side, loose on the foot, or run down 
at the heel, it is a very bad sign ; and, as to slip- 
shod, though at coining down in the morning and 
even before day-light, make up your mind to a rope, 
rather than to live with a slip-shod wife. 

1 14. Oh ! how much do women lose by inattention 
to these matters ! Men, in general, say nothing 
about it to their wives ; but they think about it ; they 
envy their luckier neighbours; and, in numerous 
cases, consequences the most serious arise from this 
apparently trifling cause. Beauty is valuable; it is 
one of the ties; and a strong tie too; that, however, 



III.] TO A LOVER. 101 

cannot last to old age ; but, the charm of cleanliness 
never ends but with life itself. I dismiss this part of 
my subject with a quotation from my " Year 3 s 
"Residence in America/' containing words which 
I venture to recommend to every young woman to 
engrave on her heart: "The sweetest flowers, when 
" they become putrid, stink the most; and a nasty 
" woman is the nastiest thing in nature." 

115. Knowledge of Domestic Affairs.— 
Without more or less of this knowledge, a lady> 
even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. It 
was the fashion, in former times, for ladies to under- 
stand a great deal about these affairs, and it would be 
very hard to make me believe that this did not tend 
to promote the interests and honour of their hus- 
bands. The affairs of a great family never can be 
well managed, if left ivholly to hirelings ; and there 
are many parts of these affairs in which it would be 
unseemly for the husband to meddle. Surely, no 
lady can be too high in rank to make it proper 
for her to be well acquainted with the character and 
general demeanour of all the female servants. To 
receive and give them characters is too much to 
be left to a servant, however good, and of service 
however long. Much of the ease and happiness 
of the great and rich must depend on the character 
of those by whom they are served : they live under 
the same roof with them ; they are frequently the 
children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours ; 
the conduct of their whole lives must be influenced 
by the examples and precepts which they here 
imbibe ; and when ladies consider how much 
more weight there must be in one word from them 
than in ten thousand words from a person who, 
call her what you like, is still a fellow-servant, 
it does appear strange that they should forego the 
performance of this at once important and pleasing 



i oBBBi r b &m h b [Lettei 

pari ul thi ir duty, [| was from the m of 

>1< mi p. and gentlemen, and not fj 
that farmer and tradesmen fori 
their wives; and though these di ith 

little chance of returning, there is .still sometbi 
left for ladies to do in checking that torrent of II 
morality which is now crowding the streets with pros- 
til ufo s and cramming the jails with thie 

116- I am, however, addressing myself, in 

work, to persons in the middle rank of life; and here 
a knowledge of domeitic affair* is so necessary in 
every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually 
in his eye. Not only a knowledge of these affairs ; 
not only to know how things ought to be done, but 
how to do than; not only to know what ingredients 
•ht to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be 
able to make the pie or the pudding. Young people, 
when they come together, ought not, unless tl 
have fortunes, or are in a great way of business, to 
think about servants! Servants for what! To help 
them to eat and drink and sleep? When children 
come, there must be some /ict/j in a tanner's or trades- 
man's house ; but until then, what call for a servant 
in a house, the master of which has to earn every 
mouthful that is consumed ? 

1 1 7. I shall, when I come to addiv It' to the 

husband, have much more to say upon this subject 
of keeping servants; but, what the lover, if he be not 
quite blind, has to look to, is. that his intended wife 
know hnir in do the work of a house, unless he have 
fortune sufficient to keep her like a lady. " Eating 
kv and drinking," as L observe in Cottagjj Econom v, 
come three times every dan; they must come: and, 
however little we may, in the days of our health and 
vigour, care about choice food and about cookery, 
We very soon get tired of heavy or burnt bread 
and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a 



III.] TO A LOVER. 103 

time, or for two, perhaps, but about the third 
time, we lament inwardly ; about the fifth time, it 
must be an extraordinary honeymoon that will keep 
us from complaining : if the like continue for a 
month or two, we begin to repent ; and then adieu 
to all our anticipated delights. We discover, when 
it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, 
but a burden ; and, the fire of love being damped, 
the unfortunately-educated creature, whose parents 
are more to blame than she is, unless she resolve 
to learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly 
approaching to that of misery; for, however con- 
siderate the husband, he never can esteem her as he 
would have done, had she been skilled and able in 
domestic affairs. 

118. The mere manual performance of domestic 
labours is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in the 
female head of the family of professional men, such 
as lawyers, doctors, and parsons ; but, even here, 
and also in the case of great merchants and of gen- 
tlemen living on their fortunes, surely the head of 
the household ought to be able to give directions as 
to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making 
bread, making preserves of all sorts, and ought to 
see the things done, or that they be done. She 
ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink 
properly prepared and kept; that there be always 
a sufficient supply ; that there be good living with- 
out waste'; and that, in her department, nothing 
shall be seen inconsistent with the rank, station, and 
character of her husband, who, if he have a skilful 
and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a singularly 
foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her abso- 
lute dominion, controlled only by the extent of the 
whole expenditure, of which he must be the best, 
and, indeed, the sole, judge. 

119, But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, 



104 cobbett\s advice [Letter 

the manual performance is absolutely necessary, whe- 
ther there be servants or not. No one knows how 
to teach another 50 well as one who lias done, and 
can do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous 
French commander, that, in attacking an enemy, he 
did not say to his men " Go on," but " Come on f 3 
and, whoever have well observed the movements of 
servants, must know what a prodigious difference 
there is in the effect of the words go and come. A 
very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat in a 
farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did 
not know how to prepare and to cook ; no pudding, 
tart, pie, or cake, that she did not know how to 
make. Never fear the toil to her : exercise is good 
for health ; and without health there is no beauty ; 
a sick beauty may excite pity ; but pity is a short- 
lived passion. Besides, what is the labour in such a 
case ? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll 
away the day, would give half their fortunes for that 
sound sleep which the stirring housewife seldom fails 
to enjoy ! 

120. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman marry 
a girl, who has been brought up to play music, to 
what is called draw, to sing, to waste paper, pen, and 
ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and to 
see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young 
man do marry such an unfortunate young creature, 
let him bear the consequences with temper ; let him 
be just : and justice will teach him to treat her 
with great indulgence ; to endeavour to cause her 
to learn her business as a wife ; to be patient with 
her ; to reflect that he has taken her being ap- 
prized of her inability : to bear in mind, that he 
was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and 
useless acquirements : and that, when the gratifi- 
cation of his passion has been accomplished, he 
is unjust and cruel and unmanly, if he turn round 



III.] TO A LOVER. 105 

upon her., and accuse her of a want of that know- 
ledge^ which he well knew that she did not possess. 

121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form 
an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a girl with 
a mere boarding-school education, and without a 
fortune to enable her to keep a servant when mar- 
ried. Of what use are her accomplishments ? Of 
what use her music, her drawing, and her romantic 
epistles ? If she be good in her nature, the first 
little faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes, 
and all the landscapes, and all the Clarissa Harlowes, 
out of her head for ever. I once saw a very striking 
instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall 
match, and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's 
Church, Westminster ; the pair being as handsome 
a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however, 
though in double quantity, would not pay the baker 
and butcher ; and, after an absence of little better 
than a year, I found the husband in prison for debt ; 
but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and 
she, who had never, before her marriage, known 
what it w r as to get w r ater to wash her own hands, 
and whose talk was all about music, and the like, 
was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and 
the most affectionate of mothers. All the music and 
all the drawing ', and all the plays and romances, w^ere 
gone to the winds ! The husband and baby had 
fairly supplanted them ; and even this prison-scene 
w r as a blessing, as it gave her, at this early stage, an 
opportunity of proving her devotion to her husband, 
w^ho, though I have not seen him for about fifteen 
years, he being in a part of America which I could 
not reach when last there, has, I am sure, amply re- 
paid her for that devotion. They have now a nume- 
rous family (not less than twelve children, I believe), 
and she is, I am told, a most excellent and able mis- 
tress of a respectable house. 

F 5 



106 i OBBE J i 8 aii\ k i 

122. But this is a rare instance: the husband, 
countrymen iu at once brave, hu- 
mane, gentle, and considerate, and the love 

and ardent, on both sides, that it made lo 
and sufferings appear as nothing. When I., in a sort 
of half-whisper, asked Mrs. Dickens where her 
piaHQ was, she smiled, and turned her face towards 
her baby, that Was sitting on her knee; as much as 
to say, ** This little fellow has beaten the piano f 
and ; if what I am now writing should 
honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer oi' a re- 
newed expression of my admiration oi' her conduct, 
and of that regard for her kind and sensible husband, 
which time and distance have not in the least dimi- 
nished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until 
it shall cease to beat, 

123. The like of this is, however, not to be ex- 
pected: no man ought to think that he has even a 
chance of it : besides, the husband WHS, in this e< 

a man of learning and of great natural ability : he 
has not had to get his bread by farming or trade ; 
and, in all probability, his wife has had the leisure to 
practise those acquirements which she p d at 

the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case 
with the farmer or the tradesman's wife ? She has to 
help lo cam a provision for her children; or, at the 
least, to help to cam a store for sickness or old age. 
She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin, at 
once, to assist her husband in his earnings: the way 
in which she can most efficiently assist, is by taking 
care of his property ; by expending his money to the 
greatest advantage; bv wasting nothing; by making 
the table sufficiently abundant with the least expense. 
And how is she to do these tilings, unless she have 
been brought Up to understand domestic affairs : How 
is she to do these things, if she have been taught to 
think these matters beneath her study ? How is any 



Ill,] TO A LOVER. 107 

man to expect her to do these things, if she have 
been so bred up as to make her habitually look upon 
them as worthy the attention of none but low and 
ignorant women ? 

1 24. Ignorant, indeed ! Ignorance consists in a 
want of knowledge of those things which your call- 
ing or state of life naturally supposes you to under- 
stand. A ploughman is not an ignorant man because 
he does not know how to read : if he knows how to 
plough, he is not to be called an ignorant man ; but, 
a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if 
she does not know how to provide a dinner for her 
husband. It is a cold comfort for a hungry man, to 
tell him how delightfully his wife plays and sings : 
lovers may live on very aerial diet : but husbands 
stand in need of the solids; and young women may 
take my word for it, that a constantly clean board, 
well-cooked victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful 
fire, will do more in preserving a husbands heart, 
than all the " accomplishments" taught in all the 
"establishments" in the world. 

125. Good Temper. This is a very difficult 
thing to ascertain beforehand. Smiles are so cheap ; 
they are so easily put on for the occasion ; and, be- 
sides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim, 
interpreted into the contrary. By " good temper" 
I do not mean easy temper, a serenity which nothing 
disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. Sultriness, 
if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper 
to be avoided by ail means. A sulky man is bad 
enough ; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and 
that woman a ivife ; a constant inmate, a companion 
day and night ! Only think of the delight of sitting 
at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for 
a week, and not exchange a word all the while! 
Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time ; 
but this is far better than the sulks. If you have 



L08 COBBB i i iDVlt [Letter 

youi e \ 3 and look sharp, you will discover symp- 
toms of this, it it unhappily exist. She will, at some 
time 01 other, show it towards some one or other of 
the family ; or perhaps towards yourself; and you 
may be sure that, in this respect, marriage will not 
mend her. Sulkiness arises from capricious displea- 
sure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party 
take., offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a 
complaint, and therefore expresses displeasure by 
silence. The remedy for sulkiness is, to sutler it to 
take its full suing ; but it is better not to have the 
disease in your house ; and to be married to it is 
little short of madness. 

12G. Queridousness is a great fault. No man, 
and, especially, no woman, likes to hear eternal 
plaintiveness. That she complain, and roundly com- 
plain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, 
of your neglect, of your liking the company of 
others : these are all very well, more especially as 
they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting 
complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad 
sign. It shows want of patience, and, indeed, want 
of sense. But, the contrary of this, a cold i/idij/er- 
enee, is still worse. " When will you come again ? 
'• You can never find time to come here. You like 
" any company better than mine." These, when 
groundless, are very teazing, and demonstrate a dis- 
position too full of anxiousness ; but, from a girl 
who always receives you with the same civil smile, 
lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with 
the same ; and who, when you take her by the hand; 
holds her cold ringers as straight as sticks, I say (or 
should if 1 were young), God in his mercy preserve 
me ! 

127« Pertinacity is a very bad thing in any body, 
and especially in a young woman ; and it is sure to 
increase in force with the age of the party. To have 



III.] TO A LOVER. 109 

the last word is a poor triumph; but with some 
people it is a species of disease of the mind. In a 
wife it must be extremely troublesome ; and, if you 
find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become a 
pound in the wife. An eternal disputer is a most 
disagreeable companion; and where. young women 
thrust their say into conversations carried on by 
older persons, give their opinions in a positive 
manner, and court a contest of the tongue, those 
must be very bold men who will encounter them as 
wives. 

128. Still, of all the faults as to temper, your me- 
lancholy ladies have the worst, unless you have the 
same mental disease. Most wives are, at times, 
misery-makers ; but these carry it on as a regular 
trade. They are always unhappy about something, 
either past, present, or to come. Both arms full of 
children is a pretty efficient remedy in most cases ; 
but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little want, a 
little real trouble, a little genuine affliction must, if 
you would effect a cure, be resorted to. But this is 
very painful to a man of any feeling ; and, therefore, 
the best way is to avoid a connection which is to give 
you a life of wailing and sighs. 

129. Beauty. Though I have reserved this to 
the last of the things to be desired in a wife, I by 
no means think it the last in point of importance. 
The less favoured part of the sex say, that " beauty 
" is but skin-deep ;" and this is very true ; but, it is 
very agreeable, though, for all that. Pictures are 
only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but -we admire 
them, nevertheless. " Handsome is that handsome 
"does," used to say to me an old man, who had 
marked me out for his not over-handsome daughter. 
" Please your eye and plague your heart," is an adage 
that want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than 
a thousand years ago. These adages would say, if 



110 CO [ Lctu i 

tin be courage, that 1) ! i incon 

out with ( i w ith Bobrit ty of conduct, and with 

th< i'< in The argument is, that beauty 

exposea the possessor to greater temptation than wo- 
men not beautiful arc exposed to ; and thai, //' 
fore, their fall is more probable* Let Ui see a little 
liow this matter stands. 

130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will 
have more, and more ardent, admirers than U 
ones; but, as to the temptation when in their un- 
married state, there arc few so very ugly as to be 
exposed to no temptotlOU at all; and, which is the 
most likely to resist ; she who has a choice of low 
or she who if she let the occasion slip may never 
have it again ? Which of the two is most likely to 

a high value upon her reputation, she whom all 
beholders admire, or she who is admired, at best, by 
mere chance? And as to women in the married 
■•tate, this argument assumes, that when they fall, 
it is from their own vicious disposition ; when the 
fact is, that, if you search the annals of conjugal in- 
fidelity, you will find, that, nine cases out of ten, 
the fan I ( is in I he husband. It is his n his 

flagrant disregard, his frosty indifference, his foul 

niple: it is to these, that nine times out often, 
he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to 
say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the fa< 
if verified, would, I am certain, bear me out. And 
whence this neglect, this disregard, this frosty in- 
difference; whence this ibul example? Because it 
is easy, in so many cases, to find some woman more 
beautiful than the wife. This is no justification for 
the husband to plead; for he has, with his e 
open, made a solemn contract: if she have not 
beauty enough to please him, he should have sought 
it in some other woman : if, as is frequently the 
case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he 



III.] TO A LOVER. Ill 

is an unprincipled nian, if he do anything to make 
her unhappy who has brought him the rank or the 
money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so 
many cases ; as it is generally caused by the want of 
affection and due attention in the husband, it fol- 
lows, of course, that it must more frequently happen 
in the case of ugly than in that of handsome 
women, 

131. In point of dress, nothing need be said to 
convince any reasonable man, that beautiful women 
will be less expensive in this respect than women of 
a contrary description. Experience teaches us, that 
ugly women are always the most studious about their 
dress ; and, if we had never observed upon the sub- 
ject, reason would tell us, that it must be so. Few 
women are handsome without knowing it; and if 
they know that their features naturally attract ad- 
miration, will they desire to draw it off, and to fix it 
on lace and silks and jewels ? 

132. As to manners and temper, there are cer- 
tainly some handsome women who are conceited 
and arrogant ; but, as they have all the best reasons 
in the world for being pleased with themselves, 
they afford you the best chance of general good 
humour; and this good humour is a very valuable 
commodity in the married state. Some that are 
called handsome, and that are such at the first 
glance, are dull, inanimate things, that might as 
well have been made of wax, or of wood. But, the 
truth is, that this is not beauty, for this is not to 
be found only in the fown of the features, but in the 
movements of them also. Besides, here nature is 
very impartial; for she gives animation promis- 
cuously to the handsome as well as to the ugly ; 
and the want of this in the former is surely as bear- 
able as in the latter. 

133. But, the great use of female beauty, the 



I I 2 COBBETT*fi Ai)\ k i [Letter 

:i practical advantage of it is, that it naturally 

and unavoidably tends to keep the hi', hand in good 
humour with himself, to make him, to use the deal 
phrase, pleased with his bargain* When old i 

approaches, and the parties have become endeared 
to each other by a long series of joint cares and in- 
terests, and when children have come and bound 
them together by the strongest ties that nature has 
in store ; at this age the features and the person 
are of less consequence ; but, in the young days of 
matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor 1 
scarcely become steady in the head of the husband, 
it is dangerous for him to see, every time he stirs 
out, a face more captivating than that of the person 
to whom he is bound for life. Beauty is, in some 
degree, a matter of taste: what one man admires, 
another does not ; and it is fortunate for us that it 
is thus. But still there are certain things that all 
men admire ; and a husband is always pleased when 
he perceives that a portion, at least, of these things 
are in his own possession : he takes this possession 
as a compliment to himself : there must, he will think 
the world will believe, have been some merit m him> 
some charm, seen or unseen, to have caused him to 
be blessed with the acquisition. 

134. And then there arise so many things, sick- 
ness, misfortune in business, losses, many many 
things, wholly unexpected 3 and, there are so many 
circumstances, perfectly nameless, to communicate 
to the new-married man the fact, that it is not a 
real angel of whom he has got the possession 5 there 
are so many tilings of this sort, so many and such 
powerful dampers of the passions, and so many in- 
centives to cool reflection ; that it requires some- 
thing, and a good deal too, to keep the husband in 
countenance in this his altered and enlightened 
state. The passion of women does not cool so 



III.] TO A LOVER. 113 

soon : the lamp of their love burns more steadily, 
and even brightens as it burns : and, there is, the 
young man may be assured, a vast difference in the 
effect of the fondness of a pretty woman and that 
of one of a different description; and, let reason 
and philosophy say what they will, a man will come 
down stairs of a morning better pleased after seeing 
the former, than he would after seeing the latter, in 
her night-cap. 

135. To be sure, when a man has, from whatever 
inducement, once married a woman, he is unjust 
and cruel if he even slight her on account of her 
want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, on this 
account, he is a brute. But, it requires a greater 
degree of reflection and consideration than falls to 
the lot of men in general to make them act with 
justice in such a case; and, therefore, the best way 
is to guard, if you can, against the temptation to 
commit such injustice, which is to be done in no 
other way, than by not marrying any one that you 
do not think handsome. 

136. I must not conclude this address to the 
Lover without something on the subject of seduc- 
tion and inconstancy. In, perhaps, nineteen cases 
out of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate cases of 
illicit gratification, no seduction at all, the passion, 
the absence of virtue, and the crime, being all 
mutual. But, there are other cases of a very dif- 
ferent description ; and where a man goes coolly 
and deliberately to work, first to gain and rivet the 
affections of a young girl, then to take advantage of 
those affections to accomplish that which he knows 
must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for 
life ; when a man does this merely for the sake of a 
momentary gratification, he must be either a selfish 
and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, 
or he must have a heart little inferior, in point of 



Jit ( OB01 | I D\ m e [Lei 

obduracy, to that of the murderer. Lei wo- 

men, I; , be aware ; lei th< well aware, 

thai few, indeed, are the cases in which this apolo 
can possibly avail them. Their character is not 
ly theirs, but belongs, in part, to their family 
and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, 
be objects of compassion with the world ; but what 
contrition, what repentance, what remorse, what 
that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is 
to heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgrat 
but still affectionate, parents, brethren and sisters ? 

13/. As to constancy in Lovers, though 1 do not 
approve of the saying, " At lovers' lies Jove laughs ;" 
yet, when people are young, one object may sup- 
plant another in their affections, not only without 
criminality in the party experiencing the ohan 
but without blame; and it is honest, and even hu- 
mane, to act upon the change; because it would 
be both foolish and cruel to marry one girl while 
you liked another better : and the same holds good 
with regard to the other sex. Even when marri 
lias been promised, and that, too, in the most solemn 
manner, it is better for both parties to break off, 
than to be coupled together with the reluctant 
ent of either ; and I have always thought, that 
actions for damages, on this score, if brought by 
the girl, show a want of delicacy as well as of spirit , 
and, if brought by the man, exeessive mcann 
Some damage may, indeed, have been done to the 
complaining party ; but no damage equal to what 
that party would have sustained from a marriage, 
to which the other would have yielded by a sort of 
compulsion, producing to almost a certainty what 

Hogarth, in his Marriage a la Mode, most aptly 

typifies by two ems, of different sexes, fastened 
together by what sportsmen call couples, pul] 
different ways, and snarling and barking and foam- 
ing like furies. 



III.] TO A LOVER* 115 

138. But when promises have been made to a 
young woman ; when they have been relied on for 
any considerable time ; when it is manifest that her 
peace and happiness,, and, perhaps, her life, depend 
upon their fulfilment; when things have been car- 
ried to this length, the change in the Lover ought 
to be announced in the manner most likely to make 
the disappointment as supportable as the case will 
admit of; for, though it is better to break the pro- 
rnise than to marry one while you like another 
better ; though it is better for both parties, you 
have no right to break the heart of her who has, 
and that, too, with your accordance, and, indeed, at 
your instigation, or, at least, by your encourage- 
ment, confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help 
your change of affections ; but you can help making 
the transfer in such a way as to cause the destruc- 
tion, or even probable destruction, nay, if it were 
but the deep misery, of her, to gain whose heart 
you had pledged your own. You ought to proceed 
by slow degrees ; you ought to call time to your 
aid in executing the painful task ; you ought scru- 
pulously to avoid everything calculated to aggravate 
the sufferings of the disconsolate party. - 

139. A striking, a monstrous instance of conduct 
the contrary of this has recently been placed upon 
the melancholy records of the Coroner of Middlesex'; 
which have informed an indignant public, that a 
young man, having first secured the affections of a 
virtuous young woman, next promised her marriage, 
then caused the banns to be published, and then, 
on the very day appointed for the performance of 
the ceremony, married another woman, in the same 
church ; and this, too, without, as he avowed, any 
provocation, and without the smallest intimation or 
hint of his intention to the disappointed party, who, 



116 COBBEfT*S advice [Letter 

unable to support existence under a blow bo cruel, 
put an end to that existence by the most deadly and 

the swiftest poison. If anything could wipe from 
our country the stain of having given birth to a 
monster so barbarous as this, it would be the ab- 
horrence of him which the jury expressed ; and 
which, from every tongue, he ought to hear to the 
last moment of his life. 

140. Nor has a man any right to sport with the 
affections of a young woman, though he stop short 
of positive promises. Vanity is generally the temp- 
ter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being 
admired by the women : a very despicable species of 
vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwith- 
standing. You do not, indeed, actually, in so main- 
words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of 
your language and deportment has that meaning ; 
you know that your meaning is so understood ; and 
if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by 
some previous engagement with, or greater liking 
for, another ; if you know you are here sowing 
the seeds of disappointment ; and if you, keeping 
your previous engagement, or greater liking, a se- 
cret, persevere, in spite of the admonitions of con- 
science, you are guilty of deliberate deception, in- 
justice and cruelty: you make to God an ungrateful 
return for those endowments which have enabled 
you to achieve this inglorious and unmanly triumph ; 
and if, as is frequently the case, you glory in such 
triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to 
excite envy ; but every just and humane man will 
abhor your heart. 

111. There are, however, certain cases in which 
you deceive, or nearly deceive, yourself ; cases in 
which you are, by degrees and by circumstances, 
deluded into something very nearly resembling sin- 
cere love for a second object, the first still, however, 



III.] TO A LOVER. 117 

maintaining her ground in your heart ; cases in 
which you are not actuated by vanity, in which you 
are not guilty of injustice and cruelty : but cases 
in which you, nevertheless, do wrong : and as I once 
did a wrong of this sort myself, I will here give you 
a history of it, as a warning to every young man who 
shall read this little book ; that being the best and, 
indeed, the only atonement, that I can make, or ever 
could have made, for this only serious sin that I ever 
committed against the female sex. 

142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North 
America, in which I passed my years from the age 
of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, in ge- 
neral, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of which 
grow the pine, the spruce, and various sorts of fir- 
trees, or, where the woods have been burnt down, 
the bushes of the raspberry or those of the huckle- 
berry. The province is cut asunder lengthwise by 
a great river, called the St. John, about two hun- 
dred miles in length, and, at half-way from the 
mouth, full a mile wide^ Into this main river run 
innumerable smaller rivers, there called creeks. 
On the sides of these creeks the land is, in places, 
clear of rocks ; it is, in these places, generally good 
and productive ; the trees that grow here are the 
birch, the maple, and others of the deciduous class; 
natural meadows here and there present themselves ; 
and some of these spots far surpass in rural beauty 
any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, 
abounding towards their sources in waterfalls of end- 
less variety, as well in form as in magnitude, and 
always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven 
their surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest 
plumage, flutter, in thousands upon thousands, 
amongst the branches of the beautiful trees, which, 
sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the 
creeks. 



US connr/i ! * UDVH [Letter 

l 18. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in 
which I took great delight, came to a spot at a Vi 
short distance from the source of one of th 
Here was everything to delight the eve, and espe- 
cially of one like me, who seem to liave been born 
to love rural lite, and trees and plants of <'dl sorts. 
Here Were about tWO hundred acres of natural mea- 
dow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in va- 
rious forms and of various extent ; the creek (th 
about thirty miles from its point of joining the 
St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which 
formed a sort of dish, the high and rocky hills 
rising all round it, except at the outlet of the 
creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in 
the hills were the sources of the creek, the wafer- 
which, came down in cascades., for any one Of which 
many a nobleman in England would, if he could 
transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; 
and in the creek', at the foot of the cascades, there 
were, in the season, salmon, the finest in the world, 
and so abundant, and so easily taken, as to be used 
for manuring the land. 

144. If nature, in her very best humour, had 
made a spot for the express purpose of captivating 
me, she ev)uld not have exceeded the efforts which 
she had here made. But I found something here 
besides these rude works of nature ; I found some- 
thing in the fashioning of which mun had had some- 
thing to do. I found a large and well-built log 
dwelling-house, standing (in the month of Septem- 
ber) on the edge of a very good field of Indian Corn, 
by the side of which there was a piece of buck- 
wheat just then mowed. I found a homestead, and 
B verv pretty COWS. 1 found all the tilings by 
which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded : and 
1 found still somethin a all the* 

that -.lined to give me a great deal of pleav 



HI.] TO A LOVER. 119 

and also a great deal of pain, both in their extreme 
degree ; and both of which, in spite of the lapse of 
forty years, now make an attempt to rush back into 
my heart. 

145. Partly from misinformation, and partly from 
miscalculation, I had lost my way; and, quite alone, 
but armed with my sword and a brace of pistols, to 
defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log- 
house in the middle of a moonlight night, the hoar 
frost covering the trees and the grass. A stout and 
clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my 
sword, waked the master of the house, who got up, 
received me with great hospitality, got me something 
to eat, and put me into a feather-bed, a thing that I 
had been a stranger to for some years. I, being very 
tired, had tried to pass the night in the woods, 
between the trunks of two large trees, which had 
fallen side by side, and within a yard of each other. 
I had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had 
made a covering by laying boughs of spruce across 
the trunks of the trees. But unable to sleep on ac- 
count of the cold; becoming sick from the great 
quantity of water that I had drunk during the heat of 
the day, and being, moreover, alarmed at the noise of 
the bears, and lest one of them should find me in a 
defenceless state, I had roused myself up, and had 
crept along as well as T could. So thatno heroof eastern 
romance ever experienced a more enchanting change. 

146. I had got into the house of one of those 
Yankee Loyalists, who, at the close of the revo- 
lutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, was 
called a rebellion), had accepted of grants of land in 
the King's Province of New Brunswick; and who, 
to the great honour of England, had been furnished 
with all the means of making new and comfortable 
settlements. I was suffered to sleep till breakfast 
time, when I found a table, the like of which I have 



120 COBBBTt's advice [Letter 

since seen so many in tlie United States, loaded with 
good things. The master and mistress of the house, 
aged about fifty, were like what an English farmer 

and his wife were half a century ago. There were 
two sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have come 
in from work, and the youngest of whom was about 
my age, then twenty-three. But there was another 
member of the family, aged nineteen, who (drea 
according to the neat and simple fashion of New 
England, whence she had come with her parents 
five or six years before) had her long light-brown hair 
twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top of her 
head, in which head were a pair of lively blue eves, 
associated with features of which that softness and 
that sweetness, so characteristic of American girls, 
were the predominant expressions, the whole being 
set off by a complexion indicative of glowing health, 
and forming, figure, movements, and all taken to- 
gether, an assemblage of beauties, far surpassing any 
that I had ever seen but once m my life. That once 
was, toOj two years a gone ; and, in such a case and at 
such an age, two years, two w T hole years, is a long, 
long while ! It was a space as long as the eleventh 
part of my then life ! Here was the present against 
the absent : here w T as the pow r er of the eyes pitted 
against that of the memory : here w r ere all the senses 
up in arms to subdue the influence of the thoughts; 
here was vanity, here was passion, here was the spot 
of all spots in the world, and here were also the life, 
and the manners and the habits and the pursuits that 
I delighted in : here was everything that imagination 
can conceive, united in a conspiracy against the poor 
little brunette in England ! What, then, did I fall in 
love at once with this bouquet of lilies and roses ? 
Oh ! by no means. I was, however, so enchanted 
with the place ; 1 so much enjoyed its tranquillity, 
the shade of the maple trees, the business of the 



III.] TO A LOVER. 121 

farm, the sports of the water and of the woods, that 
I stayed at it to the last possible minute, promising, 
at my departure, to come again as often as I possibly 
could ; a promise which I most punctually fulfilled. 

I4j. Winter is the great season for jaunting and 
dancing (called frolicking) in America, In this Pro- 
vince the river and the creeks were the only roads 
from settlement to settlement. In summer we tra- 
velled in canoes ; in winter in sleighs on the ice or 
snow. During more than two years I spent all the 
time I could with my Yankee friends : they were all 
fond of me : I talked to them about country affairs, 
my evident delight in which they took as a compli- 
ment to themselves : the father and mother treated 
me as one of their children; the sons as a brother; 
and the daughter, who was as modest and as full of 
sensibility as she was beautiful, in a way to which a 
chap much less sanguine than I was would have 
given the tenderest interpretation : which treatment 
I, especially in the last-mentioned case, most cor- 
dially repaid. 

148. It is when you meet in company with others 
of your own age that you are, in love matters, put, 
most frequently, to the test, and exposed to detec- 
tion. The next-door neighbour might, in that 
country, be ten miles off. We used to have a frolic, 
sometimes at one house and sometimes at another. 
Here, where female eyes are very much on the alert, 
no secret can long be kept ; and very soon father, 
mother, brothers and the whole neighbourhood 
looked upon the thing as certain, not excepting her- 
self, to whom I, however, had never once" even 
talked of marriage, and had never even told her that 
I loved her. But I had a thousand times done these 
by implication, taking into view the interpretation 
that she would naturally put upon my looks, appella- 
tions, and acts ; and it was of this, that I had to ae- 

G 



122 cohbktt's advice [Letter 

e myself. Yet 1 was not * deceiver; for my affec- 
tion for her was ren great i \ spent no really 
pleasant hours but with her: I was uneasy it' she 
showed the Slightest regafd for any other yoini" 

man : I was unhappy it' the smallest matter affected 
her health or spirits : I quitted her in dejection, and 
returned to her with eager delight: many a time, 
when I could get leave but tor a day, I paddled in a 

canoe two whole succeeding nights, in order to pass 
that day with her. If this was not love, it was fifSl 
cousin to it; for as to any criminal intention, I no 
more thought of it, in her case, than if she had been 
my sister. Many times I put to myself the fjues- 
tions : ft What am I at ? Is not this wrong ? ll'lnj 
do I got" But still I went. 

149. Then, further in my excuse, my prior 
gagement) though carefully left unalluded to by both 
parties, was, in that thin population, and owing to 
the singular circumstances of it, and to the great talk 
that there always was about me, perfectly veil known 
to her and all her family. It was matter of' 
much notoriety and conversation in the Provinces 
that Gkxkral Carletox (brother of the late Lord 
Dorchester) who was the Governor when I was 
there, when he, about fifteen years afterwards, did 
me the honour, on his return to England, to come 
and see me at my house in Duke-street, Westmin- 
ster, asked, before he went away, to see my t'-ij. ■ 
whom he laid heard so fnttch before her marriage. 
So that here was no deception on my part : but still 
1 ought not to have suffered even the most distant 

hope to be entertained by a person so innocent. 

amiable, for whom 1 had so much affection, and to 
whose heart [ had no right to give a single twii 
I ought, from the very first, to have prevented the 
possibility of her ever feeling pain on my account, 

1 was young, to be sure; but I was old enough to 



III.] TO A LOVER. 123 

know what was my duty in this case, and I ought, 
dismissing my own feelings, to have had the resolu- 
tion to perform it, 

150. The last parting came; and now came my 
just punishment! The time was known to every 
body, and was irrevocably fixed ; for I had to move 
with a regiment, and the embarkation of a regiment 
is an epoch in a thinly settled province. To describe 
this parting would be too painful even at this distant 
day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The 
kind and virtuous father came forty miles to see me 
just as I was going on board in the river. His 
looks and words I have never forgotten. As the 
vessel descended, she passed the mouth of that 
creek, which I had so often entered with delighfr; 
and though England, and all that England con- 
tained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek with 
an aching heart. 

151. On what trifles turn the great events in the 
life of man ! If I had received a cool letter from my 
intended wife ; if I had only heard a rumour of any- 
thing from which fickleness in her might have been 
inferred ; if I had found in her any, even the smallest, 
abatement of affection; if she had but let go any 
one of the hundred strings by which she held my 
heart : if any of these, never would the world have 
heard of me. Young as I was ; able as I was as 
a soldier ; proud as I was of the admiration and 
commendations of which I was the object; fond as 
I was, too, of the command, which, at so early an 
age, my rare conduct and great natural talents had 
given me; sanguine as was my mind, and brilliant 
as were my prospects : yet I had seen so much of 
the meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent 
pomposity, the disgusting dissipations of that way 
of life, that I was weary of it : I longed, exchanging 
my fine laced coat for the Yankee farmer's home- 

G 2 



124 COBBBTT'fl ADVU [Letter 

spun, to be where I should never behold the supple 
crouch of servility, and never hear the hectoring 

voice of authority, again; and, on the lonely banks 
of this branch-covered creek, which contained (she 
ont of the question) everything congenial to my 
taste and dearto my heart, 1, unapplauded, unfearedj 
unenvied and nncalumniated, should have lived and 
died. 



LET T E R I V. 



TO A HI.'SBAND. 



152. It is in tliis capacity that your conduct will 
have the greatest effect on your happiness ; and a 
great deal will depend on the manner in which you 
begin. I am to suppose that you have made & good 
choice; but a good young woman maybe made, by 
a weak, a harsh, a neglectful, an extravagant, or a 
profligate husband, a really bad wife and mother. 
All in a wife, beyond her own natural disposition and 
education, is, nine times out of ten, the work of her 
husband. 

L53. The first thing of all, be the rank in life 
what it may, is to convince her of the necessity of 
'moderation in expense; and to make her clearly see 
the justice of beginning to act upon the presumption, 
that there are children coming , that they are to be 
provided for, and that she is to assist in the making 
of that provision. Legally speaking, we have a 
right to do what we phase with our own property, 



IV ] TO A HUSBAND. 125 

which, however, is not our own, unless it exceed 
our debts. And, morally speaking, we, at the 
moment of our marriage, contract a debt with the 
naturally to be expected fruit of it ; and, therefore 
(reserving further remarks upon this subject till 
I come to speak of the education of children), the 
scale of expense should, at the beginning, be as low 
as that of which a due attention to rank in life will 
admit. 

154. The great danger of all is, beginning with 
servants^ or a servant. Where there are riches, or 
wdiere the business is so great as to demand help in 
the carrying on of the affairs of a house, one or more 
female servants must be kept; but, where the work 
of a house can be done by one pair of hands, why 
should there be two ; especially as you cannot have 
the hands without having the mouth, and, which is 
frequently not less costly, inconvenient and inju- 
rious^ the tongue ? When children come, there must, 
at times, be some foreign aid; but, until then, what 
need can the wife of a young tradesman, or even 
farmer (unless the family be great), have of a ser- 
vant ? The wife is young, and why is she not to work 
as well as the husband ? What justice is there in 
wanting you to keep two women instead of one ? 
You have not married them both in form ; but, if 
they be inseparable, you have married them in sub- 
stance; and if you are free from the crime of bigamy, 
you have the far most burdensome part of its con- 
sequences. 

155. I am well aware of the unpopularity of this 
doctrine; well aware of its hostility to prevalent 
habits ; w r ell aware that almost every tradesman and 
every farmer, though with scarcely a shilling to call 
his own ; and that every clerk, and every such per- 
son, begins by keeping a servant, and that the latter 
is generally provided before the w r ife be installed : I 



1 26 nil,: i i | A o\ ICE [Letter 

am well aware of all this; but knowing, from long 

and attentn that it i banc oi 

the marriage lift ; the great cause of that penury, and 
of those numerous and tormenting embarrassments, 

attlidst which Conjugal felicity can seldom 1 

kept alive. 1 give the advice., and state the reasons on 
which it was founded. 

156. In London, or near it, a maid-servant cannot 
be kept at an expense so low as that of thirty 
pounds a year ; for, besides her wages, board and 
lodging, there must be a fire solely for her; or she 
must sit witli the husband and wife, hear every word 
that passes between them, and between them and 
their friends, which will, of course, greatly add to the 
pleasures of their iire-sidc ! To keep her tongue still 
would be impossible, and, indeed, unreasonable : 
and if, as may frequently happen, she be prettier 
than the wife, she will know how to give the suitable 
interpretation to the looks which, next to a cer- 
tainty, she will occasionally get from him, who, as 
it were in mockery^ she calls by the name of f* ■ 
ter? y This is almost downright bigamy; but this 
can never do ; and, therefore, she must hav- 
lo herself. Besides the blaze of coals, however, there 
i > another sort of flame that she will inevitably 
covet. She will by no means be sparing of the 
coals : but, well fed and well lodged, as the will be, 
whatever you may be, she will naturally sigh for the 
fire of love, for which she carries in her bosom a 
match always ready prepared. In plain langu; 
you have a man to keep, a part, at least, of every 
week: and the leg of lamb, which might have lasted 
you and your wile for three days, will, by this gen- 
tleman's sighs, be borne away in one. Shut the door 
against this intruder; out she goes herself: and. 
if she go emptv-handed, she is no true Christian, 
or, at leasts will not be looked upon as such by 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 127 

the charitable friend at whose house she meets the 
longing soul, dying partly with love and partly with 
hunger. 

157. The cost; altogether, is nearer fifty pounds 
a year than thirty. How many thousands of trades- 
men and clerks, and the like, who might have 
passed through life without a single embarrassment, 
have lived in continual trouble and fear, and found 
af premature grave, from this very cause, and this 
cause alone ! When I, on my return from America, 
in 1800, lived a short time in Saint James's Street, 
following my habit of early rising, I used to see 
the servant-maids, at almost every house, dispensing 
charity at the expense of their masters, long before 
they, good men, opened their eyes, who thus did 
deeds of benevolence, not only without boasting of 
them, but without knowing of them. Meat, bread, 
cheese, butter, coals, candles ; all came with equal 
freedom from these liberal hands. I have observed 
the same, in my early walks and rides, in every part 
of this great place and its environs. Where there is 
one servant it is worse than when there are two or 
more; for, happily for their employers, they do not 
always agree. So that the oppression is most heavy 
on those who are the least able to bear it: and 
particularly on clerks, and such-like people, whose 
wives seem to think, that, because the husband's 
work is of a genteel description, they ought to live 
the life of ladies. Poor fellows! their work is not 
hard and rough, to be sure ; but, it is work, and work 
for many hours too, and painful enough ; and as to 
their income, it scarcely exceeds, on an average, the 
double, at any rate, of that of a journeyman car- 
penter, bricklayer, or tailor. 

158. Besides, the man and wife will live on 
cheaper diet and drink than a servant will live. 
Thousands, who would never have had beer in their 



L28 1 0BBB1 1 *s Aiivni [Letter 

house, have it for the servant, who will not live 
without it. However frugal your wife, her frugality 
is of little use, if she have one of these inmates to 

provide 4 for. Many a hundred thousand times has 

it happened that the butcher and the butter-man 

have been applied to solely because there was a 

servant to satisfy. You cannot, with this clog 
everlastingly attached to you, be frugal, if you 
would: you can save nothing against the days of 
expense, which are, however, pretty sure to come. 
And why should you bring into your house a trouble 
like this; an absolute annoyance; a something for 
your wife to watch ; to be a constraint upon her, 
to thwart her in her best intentions, to make her un- 
easy, and to sour her temper ? Why should you do 
this foolish thing ? Merely to comply with corrupt 
fashion ; merely from false shame, and false and 
contemptible pride. If a young man were, on his 
marriage, to find any difficulty in setting this ruinous 
fashion at defiance, a very good way would] be to 
count down to his wife, at the end of every week, 
the amount of the expense of a servant for that 
week, and request her to deposit it in her drawer. 
In a short time she would find the sum so large, 
that she would be frightened at the thoughts of a 
servant ; and would never dream of one again, ex- 
cept in ease of absolute necessity, and then for as 
short a time as possible. 

159. But the wife 'may not be able to do all the 
work to be done in the house. Not able .' A young 
woman not able to cook and wash, and mend and 
make, and clean the house and make the bed for one 
young man and herself, and that young man her 
husband too, who is quite willing ( if he be worth a 
Straw) to put up with eold dinner, or with a crust ; 
jet up and light her lire ; to do anything that the 
mind can suggest to spare her labour, and to con- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 129 

duce to her convenience ! Not able to do this ? 
Then, if she brought no fortune, and he had none, 
she ought not to have been able to marry : and, let 
me tell you, young man, a small fortune would not 
put a servant-keeping wife upon an equality with one 
who required no such inmate. 

160. If, indeed, the work of a house were harder 
than a young woman could perform without pain, 
or great fatigue ; if it had a tendency to impair her 
health or deface her beauty ; then you might hesi- 
tate : but, it is not too hard, and it tends to preserve 
health, to keep the spirits buoyant, and, of course, 
to preserve beauty. You often hear girls, while 
scrubbing or washing, singing till they are out of 
breath; but never while they are at what they call 
working at the needle. The American wives are 
most exemplary in this respect. They have none of 
that false pride, which prevents thousands in Eng- 
land from doing that which interest, reason, and 
even their own inclination would prompt them to 
do. They work, not from necessity ; not from com- 
pulsion of any sort ; for their husbands are the most 
indulgent in the whole world. In the towns they 
go to the market, and cheerfully carry home the 
result : in the country, they not only do the work in 
the house, but extend their labours to the garden, 
plant and weed and hoe, and gather and preserve 
the fruits and the herbs ; and this, too, in a climate 
far from being so favourable to labour as that of 
England; and they are amply repaid for these by 
those gratifications which their excellent economy 
enables their husbands to bestow upoirthem, and 
which it is their universal habit to do with a liberal 
hand. 

161. But, did I practise what I am here preach- 
ing ? Aye, and to the full extent. Till I had a 
second child, no servant ever entered my house 3 

g 5 



ISO ( obbi M - i n\ u i [Letter 

though well able to keep one; and never, in my 
whole life, did I live in a ho clean, in saeh 

trim order, and never have I eaten or drunk, or slept 
Of dressed, in a manner so perfectly to niv fancy, 
as I did then. I had a great deal of business to at- 
tend to, that took me a great part of the day from 
home ; but, whenever I could spare a minute from 
business, the child was in my arms j I rendered the 
mother's labour as light as I could ; any bit of food 
satisfied me; when watchill we 

shared it between us ; and that famous Gramm 
for teaching French people English, which has been 
for thirty years, and still is, the great work of this 
kind, throughout all America and in every nation in 
Europe, was written by me, in hours not employed 
in business, and, in great part, during my shan 
the night-watchings over a sick, and then only, 
child, who, after lingering many months, died in my 
arms. 

16l\ This was the way that we went on : this 
the way that we began the married life; and surely, 
that which we did with pleasure, no young couple, 
unendowed with fortune, ought to be ashamed to 
do. But she may be ill: the time may be near at 
hand, or may have actually arrived, when she must 
encounter that particular pain and danger of which 
you kace been the happy cause ! Oh ! that is quite 
another matter ! And if you now exceed in care, 
in watching* over her, in tender attention to all her 
wishes, in anxious ellorts to quiet her fears : if you 
exceed in pains and expense to procure her relief 
and secure her life ; if you, in any of these, exceed 
that which I would recommend, you must be ro- 
mantic indeed ! She deserves them all, and more 
than all, ten thousand times told. And now it is 
that vou feel the blessing conferred by her economy. 
That heap of money, which might have been squan- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 131 

dered on, or by, or in consequence of, an useless 
servant, you now have in hand wherewith to procure 
an abundance of that skill and that attendance of 
which she stands in absolute need ; and she, when 
restored to you in smiling health, has the just pride 
to reflect, that she may have owed her life and your 
happiness to the effects of her industry. 

163. It is the beginning that is everything in this 
important case ; and you will have, perhaps, much to 
do to convince her, not that what you recommend 
is advantageous; not that it is right; but to con- 
vince her that she can do it without sinking below 
the station that she ought to maintain. She w r ould 
cheerfully do it ; but there are her next-door neigh- 
bours, who do not do it, though, in all other re- 
spects, on a par with her. It is not laziness, but 
pernicious fashion, that you will have to combat. 
But the truth is, that there ought to be no combat at 
all ; this important matter ought to be settled and 
fully agreed on beforehand. If she really love you, 
and have common sense, she will not hesitate a mo- 
ment ; and if she be deficient in either of these re- 
spects ; and if you be so mad in love as to be unable 
to exist without her, it is better to cease to exist at 
once, than to become the toiling and embarrassed 
slave of a wasting and pillaging servant. 

164. The next thing to be attended to is, your 
demeanor towards a young wife. As to oldish ones, 
or w r idows, time and other things have, in most 
cases, blunted their feelings, and rendered harsh or 
stern demeanor in the husband a matter not of 
heart-breaking consequence. But with a young 
and inexperienced one^ the case is very different; 
and you should bear in mind, that the first frown 
that she receives from you is a dagger to her heart. 
Nature has so ordered it, that men shall become less 
ardent in their passion after the wedding-day ; and 



\.yj COBBETT's .\dvii [Letter 

thai women shall not. Their ardour increases 
rather than the contrary ; and they are surprisingly 
quick-sighted and inquisitive on this score. When 

the child conies, it divides this ardour with the 
father; but until then yon have it all; and if you 
have a mind to be happy, repay it with all your soul. 
Let what may happen to put you out of humour 
with others, let nothing put you out of humour with 
her. Let your words and looks and manners be 
just what they were before you called her wife. 

1()5. But now, and throughout your life, show 
your affection for her, and your admiration of her, 
not in nonsensical compliment; not in picking up 
her handkerchief, or her glove, or in carrying her 
fan or parasol; not, if you have the means, in hang- 
ing trinkets and baubles upon her; not in making 
yourself a fool by winking at, and seeming pleased 
at, her foibles, or follies, or faults ; but show them 
by acts of real goodness towards her; prove by un- 
equivocal deeds the high value that you set on her 
health and life and peace of mind ; let your praise 
of her go to the full extent of her deserts, but let it 
be consistent with truth and with sense, and such as 
to convince her of your sincerity. He Mho is the 
flatterer of his wife only prepares her ears for the 
hyperbolical stuff of others. The kindest appella- 
tion that her Christian name affords is the best you 
can use, especially before laces. An everlasting 
" my dear* 3 is but a sorry compensation for a want 
of that sort of love that makes the husband cheer- 
fully toil by day, break his rest by night, endure all 

its of hardships, if the life or health of his wife 
demand it. Let your deeds, and not your words, 
carry to her heart a daily and hourly confirmation 
of the fact, that you value her health and life and 
happiness beyond all other things in the world; and 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 133 

let this be manifest to her, particularly at those times 
when life is always more or less in danger. 

166. I began my young marriage days in and 
near Philadelphia. At one of those times to which 
I have just alluded, in the middle of the burning hot 
month of July, I was greatly afraid of fatal conse- 
quences to my wife for w r ant of sleep, she not having, 
after the great danger was over, had any sleep for 
more than forty-eight hours. All great cities, in hot 
countries, are, I believe, full of dogs ; and they, in 
the very hot weather, keep up, during the night, a 
horrible barking and fighting and howling. Upon 
the particular occasion to which I am adverting, 
they made a noise so terrible and so unremitted, 
that it was next to impossible that even a person in 
full health and free from pain should obtain a 
minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, 
sitting by the bed : " I do think/' said she, " that 
I could go to sleep now, if it were not for the dogs" 
Down stairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt 
and trousers, and without shoes and stockings ; and, 
going to a heap of stones lying beside the road, set 
to work upon the dogs, going backward and for- 
ward, and keeping them at two or three hundred 
yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the 
whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes 
might possibly reach her ears ; and I remember that 
the bricks of the causeway were, even in the night, 
so hot as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exer- 
tions produced the desired effect : a sleep of several 
hours was the consequence ; and, at eight o'clock 
in the morning, off went I to a day's business, which 
was to end at six in the evening. 

167* Women are all patriots of the soil ; and 
when her neighbours used to ask my w 7 ife whether 
all English husbands were like hers, she boldly 



13 ! COBBJBTT^fl .\[)\n t u. 1 

answered in the affirmative. I had business to 
occupy the whole of mj time, Sundays and week- 
days, e leeping hoiini ; but I used to make 
time to assist her in the taking care of her baby, 
and in all sorts of things : get up, light ker | 
boil her tea-kettle, cany her up warm water in eold 
Weather, take the child while she dressed herself 
and got the breakfast ready, then breakfast, get her 
in water and wood for the day, then dress myself 
neatly, and sally forth to my business. The moment 
that was o\er 1 used to hasten baek to her again; 
and 1 no more thought of spending a moment a$pay 
from her, unless business compelled me, than 1 
thought of quitting the country and going to sea. 
The thunder and lightning are tremendous in Ame- 
rica, oomp&red with what they are in England. My 
wife was, at one time, very much afraid of thunder 
and lightning ; and, as is the feeling of all such 
women, and, indeed, all men too, she wanted com- 
pany, and particularly her husband, in those times 
of danger. I knew well, of course, that my pre- 
sence would not diminish the danger; but, be I at 
what 1 might, if within reach of home, I used to 
quit my business and hasten to her, the moment I 
perceived a thunder-storm approaching. Scores of 
miles have I, first and last, ran on this errand in the 
streets of Philadelphia ! The Frenchmen, who were 
my scholars, used to laugh at me exceedingly on 
this account; and sometimes, when 1 was making an 
appointment with them, they would say, with a smile 
and a bow, u Saarc la tonncrrc loa/oars, Monslcar 
OobbettP 

1(]^. I never dangled about at the heels of my 
wife; seldom, very seldom, ever walked oaf, as it is 
called, with her ; 1 never " : went a walkmff" in the 
whole course of my life; never went to walk with- 
out having some object in view other than the walk; 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 135 

and, as I never could walk at a slow pace, it would 
have been hard work for her to keep up with me ; 
so that, in the nearly forty years of our married life, 
we have not walked out together, perhaps, twenty 
times. I hate a dangler, who is more like a footman 
than a husband. It is very cheap to be kind in 
trifles; but that which rivets the affections is not to 
be purchased with money. The great thing, of all, 
however, is to prove your anxiety at those times of 
peril to her, and for which times you, nevertheless, 
wish. Upon those occasions I was never from 
home, be the necessity for it ever so great: it was 
my rule, that everything must give way to that. 
In the year 1809, some English local militiamen 
were flogged* in the Isle of Ely, in England, under 
a guard of Hanoverians, then stationed in England. 
I, reading an account of this in a London news- 
paper, called the Courier, expressed my indigna- 
tion at it in such terms as it became an Englishman 
to do. The Attorney-General, Gibbs, was set on. 
upon me ; he harassed me for nearly a year, then 
brought me to trial, and I was, by Ellehborough, 
Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey, sentenced to two 
years 9 imprisonment in Newgate, to pay a fine to 
the king of a thousand pounds, and to be held in 
heavy bail for seven years after the expiration of the 
imprisonment ! Every one regarded it as a sentence 
of death. I lived in the country at the time, seventy 
miles from London ; I had a farm on my hands ; I 
had a family of small children, amongst whom I had 
constantly lived ; I had a most anxious and devoted 
wife, who was, too, in that state which rendered the 
separation more painful ten-fold. I was put into a 
place amongst felons, from which I had to rescue 
myself at the price of twelve guineas a week for the 
whole of the two years. The king, poor man ! was, 
at the close of my imprisonment, not in a condition 



136 BBBTT'fl aiivk 

to receive the thousand pounds; but his son. the p 

punctually received it % * in 

hclmljT and lie keeps it still. 

169. The sentence, though it proved not to be 
one of deaths was. in effect, one of rum^ as far 

then-possessed property went. But this really ap- 
peared as nothing, compared with the circumstance, 

that 1 must now have a child born jail) 

or be absent from the scene at the time of birth. 
My wife, who had come to sec me for the last time 
previous to her lying-in, perceiving my deep dejec- 
tion at the approach of her departure for Botley, 
lived not to go ; and actually went and took a 
lodging as near to Newgate as she could find one, 
in order that the communication between US m 
be as speedy as possible ; and in order that I might 
see the doctor, and receive assurances from him 
relative to her state. The nearest lodging that she 
could find was in Skinner-street, at the corner of a 
street leading to Smithfield. So that there she was, 
amidst the incessant rattle of coaches and butch* 
carts, and the noise of cattle, dogs, and bawling 
men ; instead of being in a quiet and commodi 
country-house, with neighbours and servants and 
everything necessary about her. Yet^ so great is 
the power of the mind in such cases, she, though 
the circumstances proved uncommonly peril" 
and were attended with the loss of the child, bore 
her sufferings with the greatest composure, because, 
at any minute she could send a message to, and hear 
from, me. If she had gone to Botley, leaving me 
in that state of anxiety in which she saw me, I am 
satisfied that she would have died ; and that event 
taking place at such a distance from me, how was I 
to contemplate her corpse, surrounded by her dis- 
tracted children, and to have escaped death, or 
madness, myself! If such was not the effect of this 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 137 

merciless act of the government towards me,, that 
amiable body may be well assured that I have taken 
and recorded the tvill for the deed, and that as such 
it will live in my memory as long as that memory 
shall last. 

170. I make no apology for this account of my 
own conduct, because example is better than pre- 
cept, and because I believe that my example may 
have weight with many thousands, as it has had in 
respect to early rising, abstinence, sobriety, in- 
dustry, and mercy towards the poor. It is not, 
then, dangling about after a wife ; it is not the 
loading her with baubles and trinkets ; it is not 
the jaunting of her about from show to show, and 
from what is called pleasure to pleasure. It is none 
of these that endears you to her : it is the adherence 
to that promise you have made her : " With my 
body I thee worship ;" that is to say, respect and 
honour by personal attention and acts of affection. 
And remember, that the greatest possible proof that 
you can give of real and solid affection is to give her 
your time, when not wanted in matters of business ; 
when not wanted for the discharge of some duty, 
either towards the public or towards private per- 
sons. Amongst duties of this sort, we must, of 
course, in some ranks and circumstances of life, 
include the intercourse amongst friends and neigh- 
bours, which may frequently and reasonably call 
the husband from his home : but what are w r e to 
think of the husband who is in the habit of leaving 
his own fire-side, after the business of the day is 
over, and seeking promiscuous companions in the 
ale or the coffee house ? I am told that, in France, 
it is rare to meet with a husband who does not spend 
every evening of his life in what is called a cafe ; 
that is to say, a place for no other purpose than that 
of gossiping, drinking and gaming. And it is with 



LSI 1 ouni.Ti's aijvk IE [Letter 






orrow that I acknowledge that many English 
husbands indulge too much in a similar habit. 
Drinking clubs, smoking clubs, singing clubs, clubs 

of odd-fellows, whist clubs, BOtting clubs: these arc 
inexcusable^ they arc censurable, they ai nee 

foolish and wicked, even in single men ; what must 
they be, then, in iinshanrfs ; and how are they to an- 
swer, not only to their wives, but to their children, 

for this profligate abandonment of their homes ; this 

breach of their solemn vow made to the former, this 
evil example to the latter? 

171. Innumerable are the miseries that spring 
from this cause. The ( ' p( use is, in the first place, 
very considerable! I much question whether, anion 

tradesmen, a shilling a night pays the avc - re* ; 

and that, too, for that which is really worth nothing 

at all, and cannot, even by possibility, be attended 
with any one single advantage, however small. 
Fifteen pounds a year thus thrown away, would 
amount, in the course of a tradesman's life, to a 
decent fortune for a child. Then there is the 
injury to health from these night adventures j there 
are the quarrels } there is the vicious habit of loose 
and filthy talk ; there are the slanders and the 
backbiting* ; there are the admiration of contempti- 
ble wit, and there the seoihngs at all that is sober 
and serious. 

1 7-. And does the husband who thus abandons 
bis wife and children imagine that she will not, in 
some degree at least, follow his example? li he d<», 
lie is very much deceived. If she imitate him even 
in drinkingj he has no great reason to complain ; 
and then the cost, may be two siiillinys the night in- 
stead of one, equal in amount to the cost of all the 
bread wanted in the family, while the baker's bill 
perhaps, unpaid. Here are the slanderings, too, 
going on at home ; for, while the husbands are as- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 139 

sembled, it would be hard if the wives were not to 
do the same ; and the very least that is to be ex- 
pected is, that the tea-pot should keep pace with the 
porter- pot or grog-glass. Hence crowds of female 
acquaintances and intruders, and all the consequent 
and inevitable squabbles which form no small part of 
the torment of the life of man. 

173. If you have servants, they know to a moment 
the time of your absence; and they regulate their 
proceedings accordingly. ¥ Like master like man/ 5 
is an old and true proverb ; and it is natural, if not 
just, that it should be thus; for it would be unjust 
if the careless and neglectful sot were served as faith- 
fully as the vigilant^ attentive and sober man. Late 
hours, cards and dice, are amongst the consequences 
of the master's absence ; and why not, seeing that he 
is setting the example? Fire, candle., profligate vi- 
sitants, expenses, losses, children ruined in habits 
and morals, and, in short, a train of evils hardly to 
be enumerated, arise from this most vicious habit of 
the master spending his leisure time from home. 
But beyond all the rest is the ill-treatment of the 
tvife. When left to ourselves we all seek the com- 
pany that we like best ; the company in which we 
take the most delight : and therefore every husband, 
be his state of life w 7 hat it may, who spends his lei- 
sure time, or who, at least, is in the habit of doing 
it, in company other than that of his wife and 
family, tells her and them, as plainly by deeds as he 
could possibly do by words, that he takes more 
delight in other company than in theirs. Children 
repay this with disregard for their father ; but to a 
wife of any sensibility, it is either a dagger to her 
heart or an incitement to revenge, and revenge, too, 
of a species which a young woman will seldom be 
long in want of the means to gratify. In conclu- 
sion of these remarks respecting absentee husbands, 



i 10 i obbb M \ dvh i [Letter 

J would recommend all those who arc prone to, 
or likely to fall into, the practice, to remember the 

words of Mrs. Silt.kx. in the BEAUX SteATAGBM: 

u My husband," says she, addressing a footman 
whom she had taken as a paramour, "comes reel- 
u ing home at midnight, tumbles in beside me 
fc> as a salmon Bounces in a net, oversets the economy 
; - of my bed, belches the fumes of bis drink in my 
" lace, then twists himself round., Leaving me half 
*• naked, and listening till morning to that tuneful 
u nightingale, his nose." It is at least forty-ti 
years since 1 read the Beaux Stratagem, and 1 
now quote from memory; but the passage lias always 
occurred to me whenever I have seen a sottish hus- 
band ; and though that speeies of revenge, for the 
taking of which the lady made this apology, was 
carrying the thing too far, yet I am ready to confess, 
that if I had to sit in judgment on her for taking 
even this revenge, my sentence would be very 
lenient ; for what right has such a husband to expect 
fidelity ? He has broken his vow ; and by what 
rule of right has she to be bound to hers? She 
thought that she was marrying a man ; and she 
finds that she was married to a beast. He has, in- 
deed, committed no offence that the law of the land 
can reach ; but he has violated the vow by which he 
obtained possession of her person ; and, in the eye 
oi' justice, the compact between them is dissolved. 

171. The way to avoid the sad consequence 
which 1 have been speaking is If) begin well: many 
a man has become a sottish husband, and brought a 
family to ruin, without being sottishly inclined, and 
without liking the gossip of the ale or coffee house. 
It is by slow degrees that the mischief is done. He 
is first inveigled, and, in time, he really likes the 
thing; and, when arrived at that point, he is incur- 
able. Let him resolve, from the very first, never to 






IV.] TO A HUSBAND 141 

spend an hour from home, unless business, or, at least, 
some necessary and rational purpose demand it. 
Where ought he to be, but with the person whom 
he himself has chosen to be his partner for life, and 
the mother of his children ? What other company 
ought he to deem so good and so fitting as this ? 
With whom else can he so pleasantly spend his 
hours of leisure and relaxation ? Besides, if he quit 
her to seek company more agreeable, is not she set at 
large by that act of his ? What justice is there in 
confining her at home without any company at all, 
while he rambles forth in search of company more 
gay than he finds at home ? 

175. Let the young married man try the thing: 
let him resolve not to be seduced from his home ; 
let him never go, in one single instance, unnecessa- 
rily from his own fire-side. Habit is a powerful 
thing ; and if he begin right, the pleasure that he 
will derive from it will induce him to continue right. 
This is not being " tied to the apron-strings" which 
means 'quite another matter, as I shall show by-and- 
by. It is being at the husband's place, whether he 
have children or not. And is there any want of 
matter for conversation between a man and his 
wife ? Why not talk of the daily occurrences to 
her, as well as to anybody else ; and especially to a 
company of tippling and noisy men ? If you excuse 
yourself by saying that you go to read the newspaper, 
I answer, buy the newspaper, if you must read it : the 
cost is not half of what you spend per day at the 
pot-house ; and then you have it your own, and may 
read it at your leisure, and your wife can read it as 
well as yourself, if read it you must. And, in short, 
what must that man be made of, who does not 
prefer sitting by his own fire-side with his wife and 
children, reading to them, or hearing them read, to 



14$ cop.ijktt's advice [Letter 

hearing the gabble and balderdash of a club or a 

pOt-hotlM company ! 

] 70*. Men nnisi frequently be from home at all 

hours of tlic day and night. Sail* . mer- 

chants, all men out of the common track of labour, 
and even some in the wry lowest walks, are some- 
times compelled by their affairs, or by circumstanc 

to be from their homes. But what I protest against 
i . the habit of Spending leisure hours from home, 
and near to it; and doing this without any necessity, 
and by Choice: liking the next door, or any house in 
the same street, better than your own. When ab- 
sent from necessity, there is no wound given to the 
heart of the Wife J she concludes that you would be 
With her if you could, and that satisfies ; she laments 
the absence, but submits to it without complaining. 
Yet, in these cases, her feelings ought to be consulted 
as much as possible ; she Ought to be fully apprized 
of the probable duration of the absence, and of the 
time of return; and if these be dependent on cir- 
cumstances, those circumstances ought to be fully 
stated ; for you haye no right to keep her mind upon 
the rack, when you haye it in your power to put it in 
a state of ease. Few men haye been more frequently 
taken from home by business, or by a necessity of 
some sort, than I have; and I can positively assert, 
that, as to my return, I never once disappointed my 
Wife in the whole course of our married life. If the 
time of return was contingent, I never failed to kt\ -p 
her informed //Yy///, day to day: if the time Wad fixed, 
or when it became h>ed. my arrival was as sure 
my life. Going frOttl London to Hotley, onee. with 
Mr. Fiwkkty. Whose name 1 can never pronounce 
Without an expression of mv regard tor his memory, 
stopped at Alton, to dine with a friend, who, 
delighted with Pinnerty^s talk, as every body else 
was, kepi us till ten or eleven o'clock, and was pro- 

II 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 143 

ceeding to the other bottle, when I put in my pro- 
test^ saying, " We must go, my wife will be fright- 
ened.^ u Blood, man" said Finnerty, " you do not 
mean to go home to-night !" I told him I did ; and 
then sent my son, who was with us, to order out the 
post-chaise/ We had twenty-three miles to go, 
during which we debated the question, whether Mrs. 
Cobbett would be up to receive us, I contending 
for the affirmative, and he for the negative. She was 
up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She 
had not committed the matter to a servant : her ser- 
vants and children were all in bed; and she was 
up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband 
and his friend. "You did not expect him?" said 
Finnerty. " To be sure I did," said she j " he never 
disappointed me in his life." 

177. Now, if all young men knew how much 
value women set upon this species of fidelity, there 
would be fewer unhappy couples than there are. If 
men have appointments with lords, they never dream 
of breaking them ; and I can assure them that wives 
are as sensitive in this respect as lords. I had seen 
many instances of conjugal unhappiness arising out 
of that carelessness which left wives in a state of un- 
certainty as to the movements of their husbands ; 
and I took care, from the very outset, to guard 
against it. For no man has a right to sport with 
the feelings of any innocent person whatever, and 
particularly with those of one who has committed 
her happiness to his hands. The truth is, that men 
in general look upon women as having no feelings 
different from their own ; and they know that they 
themselves would regard such disappointments as 
nothing. But this is a great mistake : women feel 
more acutely than men • their love is more ardent, 
more pure, more lasting, and they are more frank 
and sincere in the utterance of their feelings. They 



Ill COBBBTT'fl ADVICE [Letter 

OUght to be treated with due consideration had for 
all their amiable qualities and all their wcaki. 
and nothing by which their minds are affected OUght 
to be deemed a trifle, 

17^. When we consider what a young woman 
gives up on her wedding-day ; she makes a surren- 
der, an absolute surrender, of her liberty, ibr the 
joint lives of the parties: she gives the husband the 
absolute right of causing her to live in what place, 
and in what manner and what society, he please 
she gives him the power to lake from her, and to 
use, for his own purposes, all her goods, unless re- 
served by some legal instrument; and, above all, 
she surrenders to him her person. Then, when we 
consider the pains which they endure for us, ami 
the large share of all the anxious parental cares that 
fall to their lot; when we consider their devotion 
to us, and how unshaken their affection remains in 
our ailments, even though the most tedious and dis- 
gusting ; when we consider the offices that they per- 
form, and cheerfully perform, for us, when, were we 
left to one another, we should perish from neglect : 
when we consider their devotion to their children, 
how evidently they love them better, in numerous 
instances, than their own lives ; when Ave consider 
these things, how can a just man think any thing a 
trifle that affects their happines? I was once goifl 
in my gig, up the hill, in the village of FraNKFORD, 
near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about two years 
old, who had toddled away from a small house, was 
lying basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. 
About two hundred yards before I got to the child, 
the teams, live big horses in each, of three wagons, 
the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a tavern 
on the blt>W of the hill, started off, and came, nearly 
abreast, galloping down the road. 1 got my gi 
the mad aa speedil] as I could ; but expected l 






IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 145 

the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a 
journeyman carpenter, who was shingling a shed by 
the side of the road, seeing the child, and seeing the 
danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped 
from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and 
snatched up the child, from scarcely an inch before 
the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's leg 
knocked him down ; but he, catching the child by its 
clothes, flung it back, out of the way of the other 
horses, and saved himself by rolling back with sur- 
prising agility. The mother of the child, who had, 
apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, 
and seeing the situation of the child, rushed out, 
and catching up the child, just as the carpenter 
had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, 
uttered a shriek such as I never heard before, never 
heard since, and, I hope, shall never hear again ; and 
then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead ! By 
the application of the usual means, she was restored, 
however, in a little while; and I, being about to 
depart, asked the carpenter if he were a married man, 
and whether he were a relation of the parents of the 
child. He said he was neither : " Well, then/* said 
I, " you merit the gratitude of every father and 
" mother in the world, and I will show mine by 
" giving you what I have," pulling out the nine or 
ten dollars that I had in my pocket. " No ; I thank 
" you, Sir," said he : "I have only done what it was 
" my duty to do." 

179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal af- 
fection surpassing these, it is impossible to imagine. 
The mother was going right in amongst the feet of 
these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the 
wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for 
herself; no feeling of fear for her own life ; her 
shriek was the sound of inexpressible joy: joy too 
great for her to support herself under, Pei^haps 

H 



146 COBB] ii* \i)\i(r [Letter 

ninety* nine goothers oui of every hundred would 

have BCted the same part, under similar circum- 

siaiuvs. There ;ire, comparatively; very few wo- 
men no! Peplete with maternal love; and, by-the- 
by, take you care if you meet with a girl who ' 

" not fond of children" not to marry her />// any 

means. Some lew there arc! who even make a boast, 
that they (i cannot bear children/ 5 that is, cannot 

them. I never knew a man that w: 
tor much who had a dislike to little children ; and I 
never knew a woman of that taste who was good for 
any thing at all. I have seen a few such in the 
course of my life, and I have never wished to 
one of there a second time. 

ISO. Being fond of little children argues 
effeminacy in a man, but, as far as my observation 
has gone, the contrary. A regiment of soldiers pre- 
sents no bad school wherein to study character. 
Soldiers have leisure, too, to play with children, 
well as with u women and dogs," for which the 
proverb has made them famed. And I have never 
observed that effeminacy was at all the marked com- 
panion of fondness for little children. This fond- 
ness manifestly arises from a compassionate feeling 
towards creatures that are helpless, and that must 
innocent. For my own part, how many days, how 
many months, all put together, have I spent with 
babies in my arms ! My time, when at home, and 
when babies were going on, was chiefly divided be- 
tween the pen and the baby. 1 have fed them and 
put them to sleep hundreds o( times, though there 
were servants to whom the task might have been 
transferred. Yet, I have not been effeminate ; I 
have not been idle; 1 have not been a waster pf 
time ; but 1 should have been all these if I had 
disliked babies, and had liked the porter pot and 
the !*••• 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 147 

181. It is an old saying, " Praise the child., and 
" you make love to the mother ;" and it is surprising 
how far this will go. To a fond mother you can do 
nothing so pleasing as to praise the baby., and, the 
younger it is,, the more she values the compliment. 
Say fine things to her, and take no notice of her 
baby, and she will despise you. I have often be- 
held this, in many women, with great admiration ; 
and it is a thing that no husband ought to over- 
look ; for if the wife wish her child to be admired 
by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes 
with regard to his admiration. There was a drunken 
dog of a Norfolk man in our regiment, who 
came from Thetford, I recollect, who used to say, 
that his wife would forgive him for spending all 
the pay, and the washing money into the bargain, 
" if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was 
" pretty." Now, though this was a very profligate 
fellow, he had philosophy in him ; and certain it is, 
that there is nothing worthy of the name of conjugal 
happiness, unless the husband clearly evince that 
he is fond of his children, and that, too, from their 
very birth. 

182. But though all the aforementioned consider- 
ations demand from us the kindest possible treat- 
ment of a wife, the husband is to expect dutiful de- 
portment at her hands. He is not to be her slave ; 
he is not to yield to her against the dictates of his 
own reason and judgment ; it is her duty to obey 
all his lawful commands ; and, if she have sense, 
she will perceive that it is a disgrace to herself to 
acknowledge, as a husband, a thing over which she 
has an absolute controul. It should always be re- 
collected that you are the party whose body must^ 
if any do, lie in jail for debt, and for debts of her 
contracting, too 3 as well as of your own contracting. 
Over her tongue^ too, you possess a clear right to 

h 2 



143 < OBBKTt's advk [Letter 

exercise, if necessary, some controui ; for if she 
use it in an unjustifiable manner, it is against you, 
and not against her, that the law enables, and justly 
enables, the slandered party to proceed ; which 
would be monstrously unjust, it (he law were not 
founded on the right which the husband has to con- 
troui, if necessary, the tongue of the wife, to com- 
pel her to keep it within the limits prescribed by the 
law. A charming, a most enchanting, life,, indeed, 
would be that of a husband; it he were bound to 
cohabit with and to maintain one for all the debts 
and all the slanders of whom he was answerable, and 
over whose conduct lie possessed no compulsory 
controui. 

183. Of the remedies in the case of real/// bad 
wives, squanderers, drunkards, adulteresses, 1 shall 
speak further on; it being the habit of us all to 
put off to the last possible moment the performance 
of disagreeable duties. But, far short of these 
vices, there are several faults in a wife that may, 
if not cured in time, lead to great unhappiness, great 
injury to the interests as well as character of her 
husband and children ; and which faults it is, 
therefore, the husband's duty to correct. A wile 
may be chaste, sober in the full sense of the word, 
industrious, cleanly, frugal, and may be devoted to 
her husband and her children to a degree so en- 
chanting as to make them all love her beyond 
the power of words to express. And yet she may, 
partlv under the influence of her natural disposi- 
tion, and partly encouraged by the great; and con- 
stant homage paid to her virtues, and presuming, 
too, on the pain with which she knows her will 
would be thwarted ; she may, with all her virtues, 
be thus led to u l»>hl interference in the affairs of her 
huiband; may attempt to dictate to him in matters 
quite out of her own sphere ; and, in the pursuit of 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 149 

the gratification of her love of power and command, 
may wholly overlook the acts of folly or injustice 
which she would induce her husband to commit, 
and overlook, too, the contemptible thing that she 
is making the man whom it is her duty to honour 
and obey, and the abasement of whom cannot take 
place without some portion of degradation falling 
upon herself. At the time when " THE BOOK?* 
came out, relative to the late ill-treated Queen 
Caroline, I was talking upon the subject, one 
clay, with a parson, who had not read the Book, 
but who, as was the fashion with all those w T ho 
were looking up to the government, condemned 
the Queen unheard. 6C Now," said I, " be not so 
" shamefully unjust ; but get the Book, read it, and 
" then give your judgment." ei Indeed," said his 
wife, who was sitting by, " but HE SHA' N'T," 
pronouncing the words slia 'n't with an emphasis 
and a voice tremendously masculine. " Oh !" said 
I, " if he SHA' N'T, that is another matter ; but if 
" he sha' n't read, if he sha' n't hear the evidence, 
" he sha' n't be looked upon, by me, as a just 
" judge ; and I sha' n't regard him, in future, as 
" having any opinion of his own in any thing." All 
which the husband, the poor hen-pecked thing, 
heard without a word escaping his lips. 

184. A husband thus under command is the most 
contemptible of God's creatures. Nobody can place 
reliance on him for any thing; whether in the 
capacity of employer or employed, you are never 
sure of him. No bargain is firm, no engagement 
sacred, with such a man. Feeble as a reed be- 
fore the boisterous she-commander, he is bold in in- 
justice towards those whom it pleases her caprice to 
mark out for vengeance. In the eyes of neigh- 
bours, for friends such a man cannot have, in the 
eyes of servants, in the eyes of even the beggars at 



lid COBBE M-, d\ n i [Lettfei 

his door, such a man is a mean and despicable en 
tine though he may roll in wealth and posset 
talents into the bargain. Such a man has, in tact, no 
property; he lias nothing that he can rightly call his 

Awn : he is a beggarly dependent under his own roof; 
and if he have any thing of the man left in him, and 
if there be rope or rivet near, the sooner lie betakes 
him to the one or the Other the better. How many 

men, how many families, have I known brought to 
utter ruin only by the husband suffering himself to 

be subdued; to be cowed down, to be held in fear, ol* 
even a virtuous wife ! What, then, must be the lot 
of him who submits to a commander who, at the 
same time, sets all virtue at defiance ! 

is."). Women area sisterhood. They make com- 
mon causa in behalf of the sex ; and, indeed, this is 
natural enough, when Ave consider the vast power 
that the law gives us over them. The law is for us, 
and they combine, wherever they can, to mitig 
its effects. This is perfectly natural, and, to a cer- 
tain extent, laudable, evincing fellow-feeling and 
public spirit: but when carried to the length of 
* he sh(f n't" it is despotism on the one side and 
slavery on the other. Watch, therefore, the inci- 
pient steps of encroachment; and they come on so 
slowly, so softly, that you must be sharp-sighted if 
you perceive them ; but the moment you do perceive 
them; your love will blind for too long a time; but 
the moment you do perceive them, put at once an 
effectual stop to their progress. Never mind the 
pain that it may give you : a day of pain at this time 
will spare you years of pain in time to come. Many 
a man has been miserable, and made his wife 
miserable too, for a score or two of years, only for 
want of resolution to bear one day of pain : and it is 
a great deal to bear ; it is a great deal to do to 
thwart the desire oi one whom you so dearly love, 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 151 

and whose virtues daily render her more and more 
dear to you. But (and this is one of the most ad- 
mirable of the mother's traits) as she herself will, 
while the tears stream from her eyes, force the 
nauseous medicine down the throat of her child, 
whose every cry is a dagger to her heart ; as she 
herself has the courage to do this for the sake of her 
child, why should you flinch from the performance 
of a still more important and more sacred duty 
towards herself, as well as towards you and your 
children ? 

186. Am I recommending tyranny? Am I re- 
commending disregard of the wife's opinions and 
wishes ? Am I recommending a reserve towards her 
that would seem to say that she was not trust- 
worthy, or not a party interested in her husband's 
affairs ? By no means : on the contrary, though I 
would keep anything disagreeable from her, I should 
not enjoy the prospect of good without making her 
a participator. But reason says, and God has said, 
that it is the duty of wives to be obedient to their 
husbands ; and the very nature of things prescribes 
that there must be a head of every house, and an 
undivided authority. And then it is so clearly just 
that the authority should rest with him on whose 
head rests the whole responsibility, that a woman, 
when patiently reasoned with on the subject, must 
be a virago in her very nature not to submit with 
docility to the terms of her marriage vow. 
- 187. There are, in almost every considerable 
neighbourhood, a little squadron of she- commanders, 
generally the youngish wives of old or weak-minded 
men, and generally without children. These are the 
tutoresses of the young wives of the vicinage ; they, 
in virtue of their experience, not only school the 
wives, but scold the husbands ; they teach the former 
how to encroach, and the latter how to yield : so that 



C0BBET1 LDVICJ Iter 

it you suffei this to go quietly on, yoiu are soon 
under the care of bconrite as completely as if von 

t¥6re insane. Von want, no COfnUi : reason, law, rcli- 

,!. the marriage vow; all these have made von 

head, liave given von lull power to rule your family, 
and if you give up your light, you deserve the con- 
tempt that assuredly awaits you, and also the ruin 
that is, in all probability, your doom. 

. Taking it for granted that you will not suffer 
more than a second or third session of the female 
COmite, let me say a word or two about the eon- 
duet oi' men in deciding between the conflicting 
opinions of husbands and wives. When a wife has 
a point to carry, and finds herself hard pushed, or 
when she thinks it necessary to call to her aid all 
ihe force she can possibly muster; one of her re- 
sources is, the vote on her side of all her husband's 
visiting friends. u My husband thinks so and so, 
"and I think so and so ; now, Mr. Tomkins, don't 
u you think J am right ?*' To be sure he docs; and 
so does Mr. Jenkins, and so does Wilkins, and 
does Mr. Dickins, and you would swear that they 
were all her kins. Now this is very foolish, to say 
the least of it. None of these complaisant kins 
would like this in their own case. It is the fashion 
to say aye to all that a woman asserts, or contends 
for, especially in contradiction to her husband; and 
a very pernicious fashion it is. It is, in fact, not to 

pay her a compliment worthy oi' acceptance, but to 

treat her as an empty and conceited tool; and no 
sensible woman will, except from mere inadver- 
tence, make the appeal. This fashion, however, 
foolish and contemptible as it is in itself, is at- 
tended, wry frequently, with serious consequent 
Backed by the opinion of her husband's friends, the 
wife returns to the charge with redoubled vigour 
and obstinacy; and if you do not yield, ten to one 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 153 

but a quarrel is the result ; or, at least, something 
approaching towards it. A gentleman at whose 
house I was, about five years ago, was about to take 
a farm for his eldest son, who w T as a very fine young 
man, about eighteen years old. The mother, who 
was as virtuous and as sensible a woman as I have 
ever known, wished him to be " in the law." 
There were six or eight intimate friends present, 
and all unhesitatingly joined the lady, thinking it a 
pity that Harry, who had had " such a good edu- 
cation," should be buried in a farm-house. " And 
don^t you think so too, Mr. Cobbett ?" said the 
lady, with great earnestness. " Indeed, Ma^am," 
said I, " I should think it very great presumption 
" in me to offer any opinion at all, and especially in 
" opposition to the known decision of the father, 
" who is the best judge, and the only rightful 
" judge, in such a case." This was a very sensible 
and well-behaved woman, and I still respect her very 
highly; but I could perceive that I instantly drop- 
ped out of her good graces. Harry, however, I 
was glad to hear, went " to be buried in the farm- 
house." 

189. " A house divided against itself," or, rather, 
in itself, " cannot stand ;" and it is divided against 
itself if there be a divided authority. The wife 
ought to be heard, and patiently heard ; she ought 
to be reasoned with, and, if possible, convinced; 
but if, after all endeavours in this way, she remain 
opposed to the husbands opinion, his will must be 
obeyed; or he, at once, becomes nothing; she is, 
in fact, the master, and he is nothing but an insig- 
nificant inmate. As to matters of little comparative 
moment ; as to what shall be for dinner ; as to how 
the house shall be furnished ; as to the management 
of the house and of menial servants : as to those 
matters, and many others, the wife may have her 

h 5 



\:> \ I OBBI ii - kT)Vi< [Letter 

way without any danger; but when the questions 
arc, what is to be the calling to be pursued ; what 
is to be the place itf residence; what is to be the 

shjlc of living and .<n//c of expense; what is to he 
done with property; what the manner and plaee of 
educating children; what is to be their calling or 
state of lite: who are to he employed or entrusted 
by the husband; what arc the principles that lie is 
to adopt as to publie matters; whom lie is bo hi 
for coadjutors or friends; all these must be left 
solely to the liu:,band j in all these he must ha\e 
Lis will ; or there never can be any harmony in the 
family. 

190* Nevertheless, in some of these concerns, 
wives should be heard with a great deal of attention, 
especially in the affairs of choosing your male ac- 
quaintances and friends and associates. Women 
are more quick-sighted than men ; they are less 
disposed to conikle in persons upon a first acquaint- 
ance ; they are more suspicious as to motives; they 
are less liable to be deceived by professions and 
protestations ; they watch words with a more scru- 
tinizing ear, and looks with a keener eye : and, 
making due allowance for their prejudices in parti- 
cular cases, their opinions and remonstrances, with 
ard to matters of this sort, ought not to be set at 
naught without great deliberation. Lomvet, one 
of the Blissotinfl who tied for their lives in the time 
of lxnr.r riruKi 5 J this Lorvivr, in his narrative, 
entitled " Me* Peril*'* and which 1 read, for the 
first time, to divert my mind from the perils of the 
vcllow '-fever, in Philadelphia, but with which I was 
so captivated as to have read it many times since; 
this writer, giving an account of his wonderful 
dangers and escapes, relates, that being on his way 
to Paris from the vicinity of Bordeaux, and having 
no regular passport, fell lame, but finally crept on 



IV,] TO A HUSBAND. 155 

to a miserable pot-house, in a small town in the 
Limosin. The landlord questioned him with regard 
to who and what he was, and whence he came ; 
and was satisfied with his answers. But the land- 
lady, who had looked sharply at him on his arrival, 
whispered a little boy, who ran away, and quickly 
returned with the mayor of the town. Louvet 
soon discovered that there was no danger in the 
mayor, who could not decipher his forged passport^ 
and who, being well plied with wine, wanted to hear 
no more of the matter. The landlady, perceiving 
this, slipped out and brought a couple of aldermen, 
who asked to see the passport. " O yes ; but drink 
first." Then there was a laughing story to tell 
over again, at the request of the half-drunken 
mayor ; then a laughing and more drinking ; the 
passport in Louvet^s hand, but never opened, and, 
while another toast was drinking,, the passport slid 
back quietly into the pocket; the woman looking 
furious all the while. At last, the mayor, the alder- 
men, and the landlord, all nearly drunk, shook hands 
with Louvet, and washed him a good journey, 
swore he was a true sans culotte ; but, he says, that 
the " sharp-sighted woman, who was to be deceived 
" by none of his stories or professions, saw him get 
" off with deep and manifest disappointment and 
" chagrin." I have thought of this many times 
since, when 1" have had occasion to witness the quick- 
sightedness and penetration of women. The same 
quality that makes them, as they notoriously are^ 
more quick in discovering expedients in cases of dif- 
ficulty, makes them more apt to penetrate into 
motives and character. 

191. I now come to a matter of the greatest pos- 
sible importance; namely, that great troubler of 
the married state, that great bane of families, Jea- 
lousy; and I shall first speak of jealousy in the 



COBBJ I I [Letter 

it 18, in short, amongst many other foolish and n 

chievous things that we do in aping the maimers of 
those whose riches (frequently ill- and whose 

power embolden them to set, with impunity, perni- 
cious examples; and to their example this nation 
owes more of its degradation in morals than to any 
other source. The truth is,, that this is B piece of 
false refinement : it, being interpreted, means, that so 
tree are the parties from a liability to suspicion, 
innately virtuous and pure arc they, that each man 
can safely trust his wile with another man, and each 
woman her husband with another woman. Hut this 
piece of false refinement, like all others, overshoots 
its mark ; it says too much ; for it says that the 
parties have lewd thoughts hi their minds. This is 
not the fact, with regard to people in general; but it 
must have been the origin of this set of consum- 
mately ridiculous and contemptible rules. 

19.5. Now I would advise a young man, c 
cially if he have a pretty wife, not to commit her 
unnecessarily to the care of any other man : not to 
be separated from her in this studious and ceremo- 
nious manner; and not to be ashamed to prefer 
her company and conversation to that of any other 
woman. I never could discover any (jood-hncdimj 
in setting another man, almost expressly, to poke 
his nose up in the face of my wife, and talk non- 
sense to her; for, in such cases, nonseni ne- 
raliy is. It is not a thing of much consequence, 
to be sure ; but when the wife is young, especially, 
it is not seemlv, at anv rate, and it cannot possibly 
lead to any good, though it may not lead to any 
it evil. And, on the other hand, you may be 
quite sure that, whatever she may seem to think of 
the matter, she will not like yon the better for your 
attentions of this sort to other women, especially if 
they be young and handsome ; and as this species of 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 159 

fashionable nonsense can do you no good, why gratify 
your love of talk, or the vanity of any woman, at 
even the risk of exciting uneasiness in that mind of 
which it is your most sacred duty to preserve, if you 
can, the uninterrupted tranquillity. 

196. The truth is, that the greatest security of 
all against jealousy in a wife is to show, to prove 
by your acts, by your words also, but more especially 
by your acts, that you prefer her to all the world; 
and, as I said before, I know of no act that is, in 
this respect, equal to spending in her company every 
moment of your leisure time. Every body knows, 
and young wives better than any body else, that 
people, who can choose will be where they like best 
to be, and that they will be along with those whose 
company they best like. The matter is very plain, 
then, and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor 
do I see the use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of 
company, as it is called. What company can a young 
man and woman want more than their two selves, 
and their children, if they have any? If here be 
not company enough, it is but a sad affair. The 
pernicious cards are brought forth by the company- 
keeping, the rival expenses, the sittings up late at 
night, the seeing of "the ladies home/' and a thou- 
sand squabbles and disagreeable consequences. But, 
the great thing of all is, that this hankering after 
company, proves, clearly proves, that you want some- 
thing beyond the society of your wife ; and that she 
is sure to feel most acutely : the bare fact contains 
an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to 
lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still 
worse. 

197. If acts of kindness in you are necessary in 
all cases, they are especially so in cases of her illness 9 
from whatever cause arising. I will not suppose 
myself to be addressing any husband capable of 



160 ( obbbi i > advice [Letter 

being unconcerned while his wife's life is in the most 
distant danger from illness, though it lias been my 
very great mortification to know in my lite-time, 

two or three brutes of this description ; but, far 
short of this degree of brutality, a great deal of 

fault may be committed. When men are ill, they 
feel every neglect with double anguish, and, what 
then must be in such cases the feelings of women, 
whose ordinary feelings are so much more acute 
than those of men ; what must be their feelings in 
case of neglect in illness, and especially if the 
neglect come from the husband! Your own heart will, 
I hope, tell you what those feelings must be, and 
will spare me the vain attempt to describe them ; 
and, if it do thus instruct you, you will want no ar- 
guments from me to induce you, at such a season, to 
prove the sincerity of your affection by every kind 
word and kind act that your mind can suggest. 
This is the time to try you; and, be you assured, 
that the impression left on her mind now will be 
the true and lasting impression ; and, if it be good, 
will be a better preservative against her being jea- 
lous, than ten thousand of your professions ten thou- 
sand times repeated. In such a case, you ought to 
spare no expense that you can possibly afford ; you 
ought to neglect nothing that your means will en- 
able you to do; for, what is the use of money if it 
be not to be expended in this case : Hut, more than 
ail the rest, is your own personal attention. This is 
the valuable thing; this is the great balm to the 
sufferer, and, it is efficacious in proportion as it is 
proved tO be sincere. Leave nothing to other hands 
that you can do yourself; the mind has a great deal 
{o do in all the ailments of the body, and, bear in 
mind, that, whatever be the event, you have a more 
than ample reward. I cannot press this point too 
strongly upon you; the bed of sickness presents no 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 161 

charms, no allurements, and women know this well ; 
they watch, in such a case, your every word and every 
look : and now it is that their confidence is secured, 
or their suspicions excited, for life. 

198. In conclusion of these remarks, as to jea- 
lousy in a wife, I cannot help expressing my abhor- 
rence of those husbands who treat it as a matter for 
ridicule. To be sure, infidelity in a man is less 
heinous than infidelity in the wife ; but still, is the 
marriage vow nothing ? Is a promise solemnly made 
before God, and in the face of the world, nothing ? 
Is a violation of a contract, and that, too, with a 
feebler party, nothing of which a man ought to be 
ashamed ? But, besides all these, there is the cruelty. 
First, you win, by great pains, perhaps, a woman's 
affections ; then, in order to get possession of her 
person, you marry her; then, after enjoyment, you 
break your vow, you bring upon her the mixed pity 
and jeers of the world, and thus you leave her to 
weep out her life. Murder is more horrible than 
this, to be sure, and the criminal law, which punishes 
divers other crimes, does not reach this ; but, in 
the eye of reason and of moral justice, it is surpassed 
by very few of those crimes. Passion may be 
pleaded, and so it may for almost every other crime 
of which man can be guilty. It is not a crime 
against nature; nor are any of these which men 
commit in consequence of their necessities. The 
temptation is great ; and is not the. temptation great 
when men thieve or rob ? In short, there is no ex- 
cuse for an act so unjust and so cruel, and the world 
is just as to this matter ; for, I have always observed, 
that however men are disposed to laugh at these 
breaches of vows in men, the act seldom fails to pro- 
duce injury to the whole character ; it leaves, after 
all the joking, a stain, and, amongst those who de- 
pend on character for a livelihood, it often produces 



182 ( OBBI ii. d\ i< 

rain. At the very least, if makes an unhappy and 
wrangling family; if makes children A >r hate 

their fathers, and it affords an example HI the thought 
of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought 
to shudder* In such a case, children will take pi 
and they ought to take part, with the mother : 

is the injured patty; the shame brought Upon her 

attaches, in part, to them \ they feel the injustice 

done them ; and, it' such a man, when the gray hai 
and tottering knees, and piping voice come, l< 
round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be 
just, and acknowledge that he has now the due re- 
ward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had 
solemnly sworn to love, and to cherish to the last 
hour of his or her life. 

19 ( J. But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the 
bond) it is much worse in the wife* a proposition 
that it is necessary to maintain by the force of r 
son, because the WOmen, as a sisterhood, are pron 
deny the truth of it. They say that adultery is tuh'l- 
fery, in men as well as in them ; and that, therefore, 
the offence is OS great in the one case as in the 
other. As a crime, abstractedly considered, it c 
tainly is: but, as to the consequences^ there is a 
wide difference. In both cases, there is the breach 
of a solemn vow, but, there is this ureat distinction, 
that the husband, by his breach of that vow, only 
brings shame upon his wife and family; whereas the 
wife, by a breach of her vow, may bring the husband 
a spurious offspring to maintain, and may bring that 
spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in 

ae cases of their bread, her legitimate children. 
So that hen is a great and evident wrong done to 
numerous parties, besides the deeper d; in- 

flicted in this case than in the other. 

'2(H). And why is the disgrace deeper? because 
here is a total want of delicacy ; here is, in fact, 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 163 

prostitution ; here is grossness and filthiness of mind ; 
here is every thing that argues baseness of character. 
Women should be, and they are, except in few in- 
stances, far more reserved and more delicate than 
men; nature bids them be such; the habits and 
manners of the world confirm this precept of nature ; 
and therefore, when they commit this offence, they 
excite loathing, as well as call for reprobation. In 
the countries where a plurality of ivives is permitted, 
there is wo plurality of husbands. It is there thought 
not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives ; 
but the bare thought of a woman having two hus- 
bands would excite horror. The widoivs of the Hin- 
doos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their 
husbands ; but the Hindoo ividowers do not dispose 
of themselves in this way. The widows devote their 
bodies to complete destruction, lest, even after the 
death of their husbands, they should be tempted to 
connect themselves with other men ; and though this 
is carrying delicacy far indeed, it reads to Christian 
wives a lesson not uiworthy of their attention ; for, 
though it is not desirable that their bodies should be 
turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmuta- 
tion were preferable to that infidelity which fixes the 
brand of shame on the cheeks of their parents, their 
children, and on those of all who ever called them 
friend. 

201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is 
that this species of offence is far more heinous in the 
wife than in the husband ; and the people of all 
civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. 
Men who have been guilty of the offence are not cut 
off from society, but women who have been guilty of 
it are ; for, as we all know well, no woman, married 
or single, of fair reputation;,' will risk that reputation 
by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a 
woman who has ever, at any time, committed this 



Hi I ( OBBETT 9 A DVH ' 

offence, winch contains in itself, and by universal 

award, a sentence of social excommunication for life. 

'. Ii", thereforej it be the duly of the husband 

to adhere strictly to his marriage vow: if his breach 

of thai row be naturally attended with the fatal con- 
sequences above described: how much more impera- 
tive is the duty on the wile to avoid, even t lie sem- 
blance of a deviation from that vow ! If the man's 

misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many 
innocent parties., what shame, what dishonour,, what 
misery follow such misconduct in the wife! Her 
parents, those of her husband, all her relations,, and 
all her friends, share in her dishonour. And her 
children! how is she to make atonement to them! 
They are commanded to honour their father and their 
mother; but not such a mother as this, who, on the 
contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but 
hatred, abhorrence, and execration. His she who lias 
broken the ties of nature; she has dishonoured her 
own offspring ; she has fixed a mark of reproach 
on those who once made a part of her own body ; 
nature shuts her out of the pale of its influence, and 
condemns her to the just detestation of those whom 
it formerly bade love her as their own life. 

203. Hut as the crime is so much more heinous, 
and the punishment so much more severe, in the 
case of the wife than it is in the case of the husband. 
so that caution ought to be greater in making the ac- 
cusation, or entertaining the suspicion. Men ought 
to be very slow in entertaining such suspicion-: 
they ought to have clear proof before they can mt- 
t : a proncness to such suspicions is a very unfor- 
tunate turn of the mind; and. indeed, few characters 
are more despicable than that of a jealoU9-he& 
husband; rather than, be tied to the whims of one of 
whom, an innocent woman of spirit would earn her 
bread over the washing-tub., or with a hay-fork; or a 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 165 

reap-hook. With such a man there can be no 
peace; and, as far as children are concerned, the 
false accusation is nearly equal to the reality. When 
a wife discovers her jealousy, she merely imputes to 
her husband inconstancy and breach of his marriage 
vow : but jealousy in him imputes to her a willing- 
ness to palm a spurious offspring upon him, and 
upon her legitimate children, as robbers of their 
birthright ; and, besides this, grossness, filthiness, 
and prostitution,, She imputes to him injustice and 
cruelty : b^t he imputes to her that which banishes 
her from society ; that which cuts her off for life 
from everything connected with female purity ; that 
which brands her with infamy to her latest breath. 

204. Very slow, therefore, ought a husband to be 
in entertaining even the thought of this crime in his 
wife. He ought to be quite sure before he take the 
smallest step in the way of accusation; but if un- 
happily he have the proof, no consideration on earth 
ought to induce him to cohabit with her one moment 
longer. Jealous husbands are not despicable because 
they have grounds ; but because they have not 
grounds ; and this is generally the case. When they 
have grounds, their own honour commands them to 
cast off the object, as they would cut out a corn or a 
cancer. It is not the jealousy in itself, which is 
despicable ; but the continuing to live in that state. 
It is no dishonour to be a slave in Algiers, for 
instance ; the dishonour begins only where you re- 
main a slave voluntarily; it begins the moment 
you can escape from slavery, and do not. It is 
despicable unjustly to be jealous of your wife ; but 
it is infamy to cohabit w r ith her if you know her to be 
guilty. 

205. I shall be told that the law compels you 
to live with her, unless you be rich enough to dis- 
engage yourself from her j but the law does not 



166 corbktt's advice [Letter 

compel you to remain in the same cdiiTttrp teith her ; 

and, if a man have no other means of lidding himself 

Of such a curse, what arc mountains or seas to 
traverse? And what is the risk (if such there be) 
of exchanging a life of bodily case lor a life of 
labotir? AVliat are these, and numerous other ills 
(if they happen) superadded? Nay, what is death 
itself, compared with the baseness, the infamy, the 
never-ceasing shame and reproach of living under 
the same roof with a prostituted woman, and Calling 
her your wife ? But, there arc children, and what 
are to become of these? To be taken awav from 
the prostitute, to be sure ; and this is a duty which 
you owe to them : the sooner they forget her the 
better, and the farther they are from her, the sooner 
that will be. There is no excuse for continuing to 
live with an adulteress ; no inconvenience, no loss, no 
suffering, ought to deter a man from delivering him- 
self from such a state of filthy infamy ; and to suffer 
bis children to remain in such a state, is a crime that 
hardly admits of adequate description ; a jail is para- 
dise compared with such a life, and he who can 
endure this latter, from the fear of encountering 
hardship, is a wretch too despicable to go by the name 
of man. 

20G. But, now, all this supposes, that the husband 
has well and truly acted his part ! It supposes, not 
only that he has been faithful ; but, that he has not, 
in any wav, been the cause of temptation to the 
wife to be unfaithful. If he have been cold and 
neglectful ; if lie have led a life of irregularity ; if he 
have proved to her that home was not his delight; 
if lie have made his house the place of resort for 
loose companions; if lie have given rise to a task 1 
for visiting, junkettiftg, parties of pleasure and 

iety; if he have introduced the habit of in- 
dulging in what arc called " innocent freedoms f if 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. . 167 

these, or any of these, the fault is his, he must take 
the consequences, and he has no right to inflict 
punishment on the offender, the offence being, in 
fact, of his own creating. The laws of God, as well 
as the laws of man, have given him all power in this 
respect : it is for him to use that power for the 
honour of his wife as well as for that of himself: if 
he neglect to use it, all the consequences ought to fall 
on him ; and, as far as my observation has gone, in 
nineteen out of twenty cases of infidelity in wives, 
the crimes have been fairly ascribable to the husbands. 
Folly or misconduct in the husband, cannot, indeed, 
justify or even palliate infidelity in the wife, whose 
very nature ought to make her recoil at the thought 
of the offence ; but it may, at the same time, deprive 
him of the right of inflicting punishment on her : 
her kindred, her children, and the world will justly 
hold her in abhorrence ; but the husband must hold 
his peace. 

207. "Innocent freedoms /" I know of none that 
a wife can indulge in. The words, as applied to the 
demeanor of a married woman, or even a single 
one, imply a contradiction. For freedom, thus used, 
means an exemption or departure from the strict 
rides of female reserve ; and, I do not see how this 
can be innocent. It may not amount to crime, in- 
deed ; but, still it is not innocent ; and the use of 
the phrase is dangerous. If it had been my fortune 
to be yoked to a person, who liked " innocent free- 
" doms," I should have unyoked myself in a very 
short time. But, to say the truth, it is all a man's 
own fault. If he have not sense and influence 
enough to prevent "innocent freedoms," even before 
marriage, he will do well to let the thing alone, and 
leave wives to be managed by those who have. But, 
men will talk to your wife, and flatter her. To be 
sure they will if she be young and pretty ; and would 



1G8 COBBBTT'fl advicc [Letter 

you go and pull her away from them ! () no, by no 
means; but you must have very little sense, or must 

have made very little use of it, if her manner do not 
soon convince them that they employ their lattery in 
vain. 

208. So much of a man's happiness and of his 
efficiency through life depends upon his mind being 
quite tree from all anxieties of this sort, that too 
much care cannot be taken to guard against them; 
and, 1 repeat, that the great preservation of all is, the 
young couple living as much as possible at /tome, 
and having as few visitors as possible. If thev do 
not prefer the company of each other to that of all 
the world besides; if either of them be weary of the 
company of the other ; if they do not, when sepa- 
rated] by business or any other cause, think with 
pleasure of the time of meeting again, it is a bad 
omen. Pursue this course when young, and the very 
thought of jealousy will never come into your mind : 
and, if you do pursue it, and show by your deeds 
that you value your wife as you do your own life, 
you must be pretty nearly an idiot, if she do not 
think you to be the wisest man in the world. The 
best man she will be sure to think you, and she will 
never forgive any one that calls your talents or your 
wisdom in question. 

209. Now, will you say that, if to be happy, nay, 
if to avoid misery and ruin in the married state, re- 
quires all these precautions, all these cares, to fail 
to any extent in any of which is to bring down on a 
man's head such fearful consequences; will you - 
that if this be the ease, it is /utter to remain 

If you should say this, it is my business to show 
that you are in error. For, in the first place, it is 
against nature to suppose that children can cease to 
be born ; they must and will come ; and then it fol- 
lows, that they must come by promiscuous inter- 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 169 

course, or by particular connexion. The former 
nobody will contend for, seeing that it wculd put us, 
in this respect, on a level with the brute creation. 
Then, as the connexion is to he particular, it must be 
during pleasure, or for the joint lives of the parties. 
The former would seldom hold for any length of time : 
the tie would seldom be durable, and it would be 
feeble on account of its uncertain duration. There- 
fore, to be a father, with all the lasting and delightful 
ties attached to the name, you must first be a hus- 
band; and there are very few r men in the world 
who do not, first or last, desire to be fathers. If it 
be said, that marriage ought not to be for life, but 
that its duration ought to be subject to the w r ill, the 
mutual ivill at least, of the parties ; the answer is, 
that it would seldom be of long duration. Every 
trifling dispute would lead to a separation ; a hasty 
word would be enough. Knowing that the engage- 
ment is for life, prevents disputes too ; it checks 
anger in its beginnings. Put a rigging horse into a 
field w r ith a weak fence, and with captivating pasture 
on the other side, and he is continually trying to get 
out ; but let the field be walled round, he makes the 
best of his hard fare, and divides his time between 
grazing and sleeping. Besides, there could be no 
families, no assemblages of persons worthy of that 
name ; all would be confusion and indescribable inter- 
mixture: the names of brother and sister would 
hardly have a meaning ; and, therefore, there must be 
marriage, or there can be nothing worthy of the name 
of family or of father. 

210. The cares and troubles of the married life are 
many ; but, are those of the single life few ? Take 
the farmer, and it is nearly the same with the trades- 
man; but, take the farmer, for instance, and let him 
at the age of twenty -five, go into business, unmarried. 
See his maid-servants, probably rivals for his smiles, 

i 



17° coBBi dvice [Letter 

but certainly rivals in the charitable distribution of 

his victuals and drink amongst those of their own 
rank: behold their guardianship of his pork-tub, his 
bacon-rack, his butter, cheese, milk, poultrv. I 
and all the rest of it : look at their care of all his 
household stuff, his blankets, sheets, pillow~cai 
towels, knives and forks, and particularly of his 
crockery-ware, of which last they will hardly exceed 
a single cart-load of broken bits in the year. And. 
how nicely they will get up and take care of Ins linen 
and other wearing apparel, and always have it ready 
for him without his thinking about it! If absent at 
market, or especially at a distant fair, how scrupu- 
lously they will keep all their cronies out of his 
house, and what special care they will take of his 
cellar, more particularly that which holds the strong 
beer! And his groceries, and his spirits, and his 
wine (for a bachelor can afford it) how safe these 
will all be ! Bachelors have not, indeed, any more 
than married men, a security for health; but if our 
young farmer be sick, there are his couple of maids to 
take care of him, to administer his medicine, and to 
perform for him all other nameless offices, which in 
such a case are required ; and what is more, take care 
of everything down stairs at the same time, espe- 
cially his desk with the money in it! Never will 
they, good-humoured girls as they are, scold him 
for coming home too late; but, on the contrary, 
like him the better for it; and if he have drunk a 
little too much, so much the better, for then he 
will sleep late in the morning, and when he comes out 
at last, he will find that his men have been so hard at 
work, and that all his animals have been taken such 

id care of ! 

21 1. Nonsense ! a bare glance at the thing shows, 
that a fanner, above all men livn my 

on his affairs with profit without a wife, or a moth 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 1?1 

or a daughter, or some such person ; and mother 
and daughter imply matrimony. To be sure, a wife 
would cause some trouble, perhaps, to this young 
man. There might be the midwife and nurse to 
gallop after at midnight : there might be, and there 
ought to be, if called for, a little complaining of 
late hours : but, good God ! what are these, and all 
the other troubles that could attend a married life ; 
what are they, compared to the one single circum- 
stance of the want of a w r ife at your bedside during 
one single night of illness ! A nurse ! what is a nurse 
to do for you ? Will she do the things that a wife 
will do ? Will she watch your looks and your half- 
uttered wishes ? Will she use the urgent persuasions 
so often necessary to save life in such cases ? Will 
she, by her acts, convince you that it is not a toil, but 
a delight, to break her rest for your sake ? In short, 
now it is that you find that what the women them- 
selves say is strictly true, namely, that without wives, 
men are poor helpless mortals. 

212. As to the expense, there is no comparison 
between that of a woman-servant and a wife, in the 
house of a farmer or a tradesman. The wages of 
the former is not the expense ; it is the w r ant of a 
common interest with you, and this you can obtain in 
no one but a wife. But there are the children. I, for 
my part, firmly believe that a farmer, married at 
twenty-five, and having ten children during the first 
ten years, would be able to save more money during 
these years, than a bachelor, of the same age, would 
be able to save, on the same farm, in a like space of 
time, he keeping only one maid-servant. One single 
fit of illness, of two months' duration, might sweep 
away more than all the children would cost in the 
whole ten years, to say nothing of the continual 
waste and pillage, and the idleness, going on from the 
first day of the ten years to the last. 

IS 






] 7- cobbbi i 'a advice Letter 

213. Be ides, ia the money all? What a life to 
lead ! ! No one to talk to without going from home, 
or without getting some one to come to you; no 
friend to sit and talk to: pleasant evenings to pass ! 

Nobody to share with you your sorrows or your 
pleasures : no soul having a common interest with von : 
all around you taking care of themselves, and no 
care of you : no one to cheer you in moments of de- 
pression: to say all in a word, no one to love vou. 
and no prospect of ever seeing any such one to the 
end of your days. For, as to parents and brethren, 
if you have them, they have other and very differ- 
ent ties; and, however laudable your feelings as son 
and brother, those feelings are of a different charac- 
ter. Then as to gratifications, from which vou 
will hardly abstain altogether, are they generally 
of little expense ? and are they attended with 
no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jea- 
lousy even, and arc they never followed by shame or 
remorse ? 

214. It does very well in bantering songs, to say 
that the bachelor's life is u devoid of care:' My ob- 
servation tells me the contrary, and reason concurs, 
in this regard, with experience. The bachelor has no 
one on whom he can in all cases rely. When he 
quits his home, he carries with him cares that are 
unknown to the married man. If, indeed, like the 
common soldier, he have merely a lodging-place, and 
a bundle of clothes, given in charge to some one, he 
may be at his ease; but if he \ any thing of a 
home, he is never sure of its safety ; and this uncer- 
tainty is a great enemy to cheerfulness. And as to 
efficiency in life, how is the bachelor to equal the 
married man : In the case of farmers and tradesmen, 
the hitter have so clearly the advantage over the 
former, that one need hardly insist upon the point j 
but it is, and must be, the same in .all the situations 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 1?3 

of life. To provide for a wife and children is the 
greatest of all possible spurs to exertion. Many a 
man., naturally prone to idleness, has become active 
and industrious when he saw children growing up 
about him ; many a dull sluggard has become, if not 
a bright man, at least a bustling man, when roused 
to exertion by his love. Dryden's account of the 
change wrought in Cymon 3 is only a strong case of 
the kind. And, indeed, if a man will not exert him- 
self for the sake of a wife and children, he can have 
no exertion in him ; or he must be deaf to all the 
dictates of nature. 

215. Perhaps the world never exhibited a more 
striking proof of the truth of this doctrine than that 
which is exhibited in me; and I am sure that every 
one will say, without any hesitation, that a fourth 
part of the labours I have performed, never would 
have been performed, if I had not been a married 
man. In the first place, they could not ; for I should, 
all the early part of my life, have been rambling and 
roving about as most bachelors are. I should have 
had no home that I cared a straw about, and should 
have wasted the far greater part of my time. The 
great affair of home being settled, having the home 
secured, I had leisure to employ my mind on things 
which it delighted in. I got rid at once of all cares, 
all anxieties^ and had only to provide for the very 
moderate wants of that home. But the children 
began to come. They sharpened my industry : they 
spurred me on. To be sure, I had other and strong 
motives : I wrote for fame, and was urged forward by 
ill-treatment, and by the desire to triumph over my 
enemies ; but, after all, a very large part of my nearly 
a hundred volumes may be fairly ascribed to the wife 
and children. 

216. 1 might have done something; but, perhaps, 
not a thousandth part of what I have done ; not even 



1 7 I COBBE PT^a ADVII 1 1( Her 

a thousandth part: for the chances arc, that I, being 
fond of a military life, should have ( tided my days 
ten or twenty years ago, in consequence of wounds, 
or fatigue, or, more Likely, in consequence of the 
persecutions of some haughty and insolent fool, 
whom nature had formed to black my shoes, and 
whom a system of corruption had made mv com- 
mander. Lave came and rescued me from this state 
of horrible slavery; placed the whole of mv time at 
my own disposal; made me as free as air; removed 
every restraint upon the operations of my mind, 
naturally disposed to communicate its thoughts to 
others ; and gave me, for my leisure hours, a com- 
panion, who, though deprived of all opportunity of 
acquiring what is called learning ^ had so much good 
sense, so much useful knowledge, was so innocent, 
so just in all her ways, so pure in thought, word 
and deed, so disinterested, so generous, so devoted to 
me and her children, so free from all disguise, and, 
withal, so beautiful and so talkative, and in a voice 
so sweet, so cheering, that I must, seeing the health 
and the capacity which it had pleased God to give 
me, have been a criminal, if I had done much 1 
than that which I have done ; and 1 have always 
said, that if my country feel any gratitude for 
my labours, that gratitude is due to her full as much 
as to me. 

217. " Care!" What care have I known ! I have 
been buffeted about by this powerful and vindictive 
Government; 1 have repeatedly had the fruit of my 
labour snatched away from me by it; but I had a 
partner that never frowned, that was never melan- 
choly, that never was subdued in spirit, that never 
abated a smile, on these occasions, that fortified me, 
and sustained me by her courageous example, and 
that was just as busy and as zealous in taking care of 
the remnant as she had been in taking care of the 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 1/5 

whole ; just as cheerful, and just as full of caresses, 
when brought down to a mean hired lodgings as 
when the mistress of a fine country-house, with 
all its accompaniments ; and, whether from her 
words or her looks, no one could gather that she 
regretted the change. What " cares" have I had, 
then ? What have I had worthy of the name of 
" cares ?" 

218. And, how is it now? How is it when the 
sixty-fourth year has come ? And how should I have 
been without this wife and these children ? I might 
have amassed a tolerable heap of money ; but what 
would that have done for me ? It might have bought 
me plenty of professions of attachment ; plenty of 
persons impatient for my exit from the world ; but 
not one single grain of sorrow for any anguish that 
might have attended my approaching end. To me, 
no being in this world appears so wretched as an 
Old Bachelor. Those circumstances, those changes 
in his person and in his mind, which, in the husband, 
increase rather than diminish the attentions to him, 
produce all the want of feeling attendant on disgust ; 
and he beholds, in the conduct of the mercenary 
crew that generally surround him, little besides an 
eager desire to profit from that event, the ap- 
proach of which nature makes a subject of sorrow 
with him. 

219. Before I quit this part of my work, I cannot 
refrain from offering my opinion with regard to what 
is due from husband to wife, when the disposal of his 
property comes to be thought of. When marriage is 
an affair settled by deeds, contracts, and lawyers, the 
husband, being bound beforehand, has really no will 
to make. But where he has a will to make, and a 
faithful wife to leave behind him, it is his first duty 
to provide for her future well-being, to the utmost of 
his power. If she brought him no money, she 



i ; 6 ( obbei j s afjvk i, [Letter 

brought him her \ and by delivering that up 

to him, she established a claim to his careful pro- 
tection of her to the end of her life. Some men 
think, or act as if they thought, that, if a wife 
bring do money, and if the husband gain money 
by his business or profession, that money is his, 
and not hers, because she has not been doing any of 
those tilings for which the money has been received. 
Hut is this way of thinking just ? By the marriage 
vow, the husband endows the wife with all his 
worldly goods ; and not a bit too much is this, when 
she is giving him the command and possession of her 
person. But does she not help to acquire the money? 
Speaking, for instance, of the farmer, or the merchant, 
the wife does not, indeed, go to plough, or to look 
after the ploughing and sowing ; she does not pur- 
chase or sell the stock; she does not go to the fair 
or the market ; but she enables him to do all these 
without injury to his affairs at home; she is the 
guardian of his property ; she preserves what would 
otherwise be lost to him. The barn and the granary, 
though they create nothing, have, in the bringing of 
food to our mouths, as much merit as the fields 
themselves. The wife does not, indeed, assist in the 
merchant's counting-house; she does not go upon 
the Exchange; she does not even know what he is 
doing; but she keeps his house in order; she rears 
up Ins children ; she provides a scene of suitable 
resort for his friends ; she ensures him a constant 
retreat from the fatigues of 1 j is affairs; she makes 
his home pleasant, and she is the guardian of his 
income. 

220. In both these cases, the wife helps to gain 

money; and in cases where there is no gain, 

where the income is by descent, or is fixed, she 

helps to prevent it from being squandered away. 

It is, therefore, as much lit /. as it is the husband's: 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. 177 

and though the laiv gives him^ in many cases, the 
power of keeping her share from her, no just man 
will ever avail himself of that power. With regard 
to the tying up of widows from marrying again, I 
will relate what took place in a case of this kind, in 
America. A merchant, who had., during his married 
state, risen from poverty to very great riches, and 
who had, nevertheless, died at about forty years of 
age, left the whole of his property to his wife for her 
life, and at her disposal at her death, provided that 
she did not marry* The consequence was, that she 
took a husband ivithout marrying, and, at her death 
(she having no children), gave the whole of the pro- 
perty to the second husband ! So much for posthu- 
mous jealousy ! 

221. Where there are children, indeed, it is the 
duty of the husband to provide, in certain cases, 
against step-fathers, who are very prone not to be 
the most just and affectionate parents. It is an 
unhappy circumstance, when a dying father is 
compelled to have fears of this sort. There is sel- 
dom an apology to be offered for a mother that will 
hazard the happiness of her children by a second 
marriage. The law allows it, to be sure ; but there 
is, as Prior says, " something beyond the letter of 
the law." I know what ticklish ground I am tread- 
ing on here; but, though it is as lawful for a woman 
to take a second husband as for a man to take a 
second wife, the cases are different, and widely dif- 
ferent, in the eye of morality and of reason ; for, as 
adultery in the wife is a greater offence than adul- 
tery in the husband ; as it is more gross, as it in- 
cludes prostitution; so a second marriage in the 
woman is more gross than in the man, argues great 
deficiency in that delicacy, that innate modesty, 
which, after all, is the great charm, the charm of 
charms, in the female sex. I do not like to hear a 

i 5 



i j 9 comihTr\s apvioj ! Letter 

man talk of his ///\s/ /'v/c, especially in the presence 

of a second; but to hear a woman thus talk of her 
first husband, lias never, however beautiful and good 

she might be, failed to sink her in my estimation. 
1 have, in such eases, never been able to keep out 
of my mind, that concatenation of ideas, which, in 
spite of custom, in spite of the frequency of the 

occurrence, leaves an impression deeply disadvan- 
tageous to the party; for, after the greatest of inge- 
nuity has exhausted itself in the way of apology, it 
conies to this at last, that the person has a second 
time undergone that surrender, to which nothing but 
the most ardent affection could ever reconcile a 
chaste and delicate woman. 

222. The usual apologies, that " a lone worn on 
(i wants a protector ; that she cannot manage her 
"estate; that she cannot carry on her business; 
"that she wants a home for her children;" all 
these apologies are not worth a straw ; for what is 
the amount of them ? Why, that she surrenders 
her person to secure these ends ! And if we admit 
the validity of such apologies, are we far from apo- 
logising for the kept-mistress, and even the prosti- 
tute ? Nay, the former of these may (if she confine 
herself to one man) plead more boldly in her de- 
fence ; and even the latter may plead that hunger, 
which knows no law, and no decorum, and no deli- 
cacy. These unhappy, but justly-reprobated and 
despised parties, are allowed no apology at all : 
though reduced to the begging of their bread, the 
world grants them no excuse. The sentence on 
them is: "You shall suffer every hardship; you 
" shall submit to hunger and nakedness ; you shall 
t€ perish by the way-side, rather than you shall imt- 
w - render your person to the dishonour of the female 
** s< >." Hut can we. without crying injustice, pass 
this sentence upon them, and, at the same time, 



IV.] TO A HUSBAND. l7^ 

hold it to be proper, decorous, and delicate, that 
widows shall surrender their persons for worldly 
gain, for the sake of ease, or for any consideration 
whatsoever ? 

223. It is disagreeable to contemplate the possi- 
bility of cases of separation ; but amongst the evils 
of life, such have occurred, and will occur ; and the 
injured parties, while they are sure to meet with 
the pity of all just persons, must console themselves 
that they have not merited their fate. In the making 
one's choice, no human foresight or prudence can, 
in all cases, guard against an unhappy result. There 
is one species of husbands to be occasionally met 
w T ith in all countries, meriting particular reprobation, 
and causing us to lament, that there is no law to 
punish offenders so enormous. There was a man 
in Pennsylvania, apparently a very amiable young 
man, having a good estate of his own, and marrying 
a most beautiful woman of his own age, of rich 
parents, and of virtue perfectly spotless. He very 
soon took to both gaming and drinking (the last 
being the most fashionable vice of the country) ; he 
neglected his affairs and his family; in about four 
years spent his estate, and became a dependant on 
his wife's father, together with his wife and three 
children. Even this would have been of little con- 
sequence, as far as related to expense; but he led 
the most scandalous life, and was incessant in his 
demands of money for the purposes of that infamous 
life. All sorts of means were resorted to to reclaim 
him, and all in vain ; and the w r retch, availing him- 
self of the pleading of his wife's affection, and of his 
power over the children more especially, continued 
for ten or twelve years to plunder the parents, 
and to disgrace those whom it was his boundeu 
duty to assist in making happy. At last, going out 
in the dark, in a boat, and being partly drunk, he 



L80 COBBETT's advice. [Letter IV. 

went to the bottom of the Delaware* and became 
food for otters or fishes* to the great joy of all who 

knew him, excepting only his amiable wife. I can 
form an idea of no baseness equal to this. There is 
more of baseness in this character than in that of 
the robber. The man who obtains the means of 
indulging in vice, by robbery, exposes himself to 
the inflictions of the law ; but though he merits 
punishment, he merits it less than the base mis- 
creant who obtains his means by his threats to dis- 
grace his own wife, children, and the wtfe?8 parents. 
The short way, in such a case., is the best : set the 
wretch at defiance ; resort to the strong arm of the 
law wherever it will avail you ; drive him -from 
your house like a mad dog ; for, be assured, that a 
being so base and cruel is never to be reclaimed ; 
all your efforts at persuasion are useless ; his pro- 
mises and vows are made but to be broken ; all 
your endeavours to keep the thing from the know- 
ledge of the world, only prolong his plundering of 
you ; and many a tender father and mother have been 
ruined by such endeavours ; the whole story must 
come out at fast, and it is better to come out before 
you be ruined, than after your ruin is completed. 

224. However, let me hope, that those who read 
this work will always be secure against evils like 
these ; let mc hope, that the young men who read 
it will abstain from those vices which lead to such 
fatal results ; that they will, before they utter the 
marriage vow, duly rcilect on the great duties that 
that now imposes on them ; that they will repel, 
from the outset, every temptation to any thing 
tending to give pain to the defenceless persons 
whose love for them has placed them at their 
men v ; and that they will imprint on their own 
minds this truth, that a lad husband was never yet a 
happy man. 



181 



LETTER V, 

TO A FATHER. 



225. " Little children/ 5 says the Scripture, 
" are like arrows in the hands of the giant, and 
" blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of 
" them ;" a beautiful figure to describe, in forcible 
terms, the support, the power, which a father 
derives from being surrounded by a family. And 
what father, thus blessed, is there who does not 
feel, in this sort of support, a reliance which he 
feels in no other ? In regard to this sort of support 
there is no uncertainty, no doubts, no misgivings ; 
it is yourself that you see in your children : their 
bosoms are the safe repository of even the whispers 
of your mind : they are the great and unspeakable 
delight of your youth, the pride of your prime of 
life, and the props of your old age. They proceed 
from that love, the pleasures of which no tongue or 
pen can adequately describe, and the various bless- 
ings which they bring are equally incapable of 
description. 

226. But, to make them blessings, you must act 
your part well ; for they may, by your neglect, your 
ill-treatment, your evil example, be made to be the 
contrary of blessings ; instead of pleasure, they may 
bring you pain ; instead of making your heart glad, 
the sight of them may make it sorrowful ; instead 
of being the staff of your old age, they may bring 
your grey hairs in grief to the grave. 



l B2 cobbbttVi ad\ k Iter 

- J 7 • It is therefore, of the greatest importance, 
that you here act well your part, omitting nothing, 
even from the very beginning, tending to give you 

at and unceasing influence over their minds ; 

and, above all things, to ensure, it' possible, an 
ardent lore of I heir mother. Your first duty towards 
them is resolutely to prevent their drawing the 
means of life from any breast but h That is 

their own : it is their birthright; and if that fail 
from any natural cause, the place of it ought to be 
supplied by those means which are frequently 

>rted to without employing a hireling breast. I 
am aware of the too frequent practice of the con- 
trary ; I am well aware of the offence which J shall 
here give to many ; but it is for me to do my duty 
and to set, with regard to myself, consequences at 
defiance. 

228« In the first place, no food is so congenial to 
the child as the milk of its own mother ; its quality 
is made by nature to suit the age of the child; it 
comes with the child, and is calculated precisely 
for its stomach. And, then, what sort of a mother 
must that be who can endure the thought of seeing 
her child at another breast! The suckling may be 
attended with great pain, and it is so attended in 
many cases : but this pain is a necessary conse- 
quence of pleasures foregone ; and, besides, it lias 
its accompanying pleasures too. No mother ever 
suffered more than my wife did from suckling her 
children. Uow many times have I seen her, when 
the child was beginning to draw, bite her lips while 
the tears ran down her cheeks ! Yet, having endured 
this, the smiles came and dried up the tears; and the 
little thing that had caused the pain received abun- 
dant kisses as its punishment. 

229. Why, now, did I not love her the mor< 
this ? Did not this tend to rivet her to my heart i 



V.] TO A FATHER. 183 

She was enduring this for me; and would not this 
endearing thought have been wanting, if I had seen 
the baby at a breast that I had hired and paid for ; 
if I had had two women, one to bear the child and 
another to give it milk ? Of all the sights that this 
world affords., the most delightful in my eyes, even 
to an unconcerned spectator, is, a mother with her 
clean and fat baby lugging at her breast, leaving off 
now-and-then and smiling, and she, occasionally, half 
smothering it with kisses. What must that sight be, 
then, to the father of the child ! 

230. Besides, are we to overlook the great and 
wonderful effect that this has on the minds of 
children ? As they succeed each other, they see 
with their own eyes, the pain, the care, the caresses, 
which their mother has endured for, or bestowed 
on, them ; and nature bids them love her accord- 
ingly. To love her ardently becomes part of their 
very nature ; and when the time comes that her 
advice to them is necessary as a guide for their 
conduct, this deep and early impression has all its 
natural weight, which must be wholly wanting if 
the child be banished to a hireling breast, and only 
brought at times into the presence of the mother, 
who is, in fact, no mother, or, at least, but half a 
one. The children who are thus banished, love (as 
is natural and just) the foster-mother better than 
the real mother as long as they are at the breast. 
When this ceases, they are taught to love their own 
mother most ; but this teaching is of a cold and 
formal kind. They may, and generally do, in a short 
time, care little about the foster-mother; the teach- 
ing weans all their affection from her, but it does not 
transfer it to the other. 

231. I had the pleasure to know, in Hampshire, 
a lady who had brought up a family of ten children 
by hand, as they call it. Owing to some defect, she 



1 - I COBBETT's ad\ k i. [Letter 

could not suckle her children; but she wisely and 

heroically resolved, that her children should hang 
upon no other breast, and that she would not par- 
ticipate in the crime of robbing another child 01 its 
birthright, and, as is mostly the case, of iff Itfe* 
Who has not seen these banished children, when 
brought and put into the arms of their mothi 
screaming to get from them, and stretching out their 
little hands to get back into the arms of the nurse, 
and when safely got there, hugging the hireling as 
if her bosom were a place of refuge ? Why, such a 
sight is, one would think, enough to strike a mother 
dead. And what sort of a husband and father, I 
want to know, must that be, who can endure the 
thought of his child loving another woman more than 
its own mother and his wife ? 

232. And besides all these considerations, is there 
no crime in robbing the child of the nurse, and in 
exposing it to perish ? It will not do to say that 
the child of the nurse may be dead, and thereby 
leave her breast for the use of some other. Such 
cases must happen too seldom to be at all relied on ; 
and, indeed, every one must see, that, generally 
speaking, there must be a child cast off for every 
one that is put to a hireling breast. Now, without 
supposing it possible, that the hireling will, in any 
case, contrive to get rid of her own child ; every 
man who employs such hireling, must know, that 
he is exposing such child to destruction ; that he is 
assisting to rob it of the means of life ; and of 
course, assisting to procure its death, as completely 
as a man can, in au\ case, assist in causing death 
by starvation; a consideration which will make 
every just man in the world recoil a! the thought 
oi employing a hireling breast. For he is not to 
think ol" pacifying his conscience, by saying, that he 
knows nothing about the hireling's child. lie does 



V.] TO A FATHER. 185 

know : for he must know, that she has a child, and 
that he is a principal in robbing it of the means of 
life. He does not cast it off and leave it to perish 
himself, but he causes the thing to be done ; and to 
all intents and purposes, he is a principal in the 
cruel and cowardly crime. 

233. And if an argument could possibly be yet 
wanting to the husband ; if his feelings were so 
stiff as still to remain unmoved, must not the w r ife 
be aware that whatever face the world may put 
upon it, however custom may seem to bear her out ; 
must she not be aware that every one must see the 
main motive which induces her to banish from her 
arms that which has formed part of her own body ? 
All the pretences about her sore breasts and her 
want of strength are vain : nature says that she is 
to endure the pains as well as the pleasures : who- 
ever has heard the bleating of the ewe for her lamb, 
and has seen her reconciled, or at least pacified, by 
having presented to her the skin or some of the 
blood of her dead lamb : whoever has witnessed the 
difficulty of inducing either ewe or cow, to give her 
milk to an alien young one : whoever has seen the 
valour of the timid hen in defending her brood, and 
has observed that she never swallows a morsel that 
is fit for her young, until they be amply satisfied : 
whoever has seen the wild birds, though at other 
times shunning even the distant approach of man, 
flying and screaming round his head, and exposing 
themselves to almost certain death in defence of 
their nests : whoever has seen these things, or any 
one of them, must question the motive that can in- 
duce a mother to banish a child from her own breast 
to that of one who has already been so unnatural as 
to banish hers. And, in seeking for a motive suffi- 
ciently powerful to lead to such an act, women must 
excuse men, if they be not satisfied w r ith the ordi- 



L86 COBB«TT , a ADVH [Letter 

nary pretences; they must excuse me at any rate, 
if I do not stop even at love of ease and want, of 
maternal affection, and if I express my fear, that, 
superadded to the unjustifiable motives, there is one 
which is calculated to excite disgust; namely, a 
desire to be quickly freed from that restraint which 
the child imposes, and to hasten back, unbridled 
and undisiigured, to those enjoyments, to have an 
eagerness for which, or to wish to excite a desire for 
which, a really delicate woman will shudder at the 
thought of being suspected. 

234. I am well aware of the hostility that 1 have 
here been exciting ; but there is another, and still 
more furious, bull to take by the horns, and 
which would have been encountered some p., 
back (that being the proper place), had I not hesi- 
tated between my duty and my desire to avoid giving 
offence ; I mean the employing of male-operators, 
on those occasions where females used to be em- 
ployed. And here I have every thing against me ; 
the now general custom, even amongst the most 
chaste and delicate women ; the ridicule continually 
cast on old midwives ; the interest of a profession, 
for the members of which I entertain more respect 
and regard than for those of any other ; and, above 
all the rest, my own example to the contrary, and my 
knowledge that every husband has the same apology 
that I had. But because I acted wrong myself, it 
is not less, but rather more, my duty to endeavour 
to dissuade others from doing the same. My wife 
had suffered very severely with her seeond child, 
-which, at last, was still-born. The next time 1 
pleaded for the doctor: and, after every argument 
that I could think of, obtained a reluctant consent. 
Her fife was so dear to me, that every thing else 
appeared as nothing. Every husband has the same 
apology to make; and thus from the good, and not 



V.] TO A FATHER. 187 

from the bad,, feelings of men, the practice has be- 
come far too general, for me to hope even to narrow 
it ; but, nevertheless, I cannot refrain from giving 
my opinion on the subject. 

235. We are apt to talk in a very unceremonious 
style of our rude ancestors, of their gross habits,, 
their want of delicacy in their language. No man 
shall ever make me believe, that those who reared 
the cathedral of Ely (which I saw the other day), 
were rude, either in their manners or in their minds 
and words. No man shall make me believe, that 
our ancestors were a rude and beggarly race, when 
I read in an Act of Parliament passed in the reign 
of Edward the Fourth, regulating the dresses of the 
different ranks of the people, and forbidding the 
LABOURERS to wear coats of cloth that cost more 
than tivo shillings a yard (equal to forty shillings of 
our present money), and forbidding their wives and 
daughters to wear sashes, or girdles, trimmed with 
gold or silver. No man shall make me believe 
that this was a rude and beggarly race, compared 
with those who now shirk and shiver about in canvass 
frocks and rotten cottons. Nor shall any man per- 
suade me that that was a rude and beggarly state of 
things, in which (reign of Edward the Third) an 
Act was passed regulating the wages of labour, and 
ordering that a woman, for weeding in the com, 
should receive a penny a day, while a quart of red 
wine was sold for a penny, and a pair of men^s shoes 
for tivo-pence. No man shall make me believe that 
agriculture was in a rude state, when an Act like 
this was passed, or that our ancestors of that day 
were rude in their minds, or in their thoughts. 
Indeed, there are a thousand proofs, that, whether 
in regard to domestic or foreign affairs, whether 
in regard to internal freedom and happiness, or to 
weight in the world, England was at her zenith 



188 COBBBTT*S advici. [Letter 

about the reign of Edward the Third. The Reform- 
olio*, as it is called; gave her a complete pull 

down. She revived again in 1 1 ie reigns of the 
Stuarts, as far as related to internal affairs ; but the 
€i Glorious Revolution?* and its debt and its taxes 

have, amidst the false glare of new palaces, roads, 
and canals, brought her down until she is become 
the land of domestic misery and of foreign impotence 
and contempt ; and, until she, amidst all her boasted 
improvements and refinements, tremblingly awaits 
her fall. 

236. However, to return from this digression. 
rude and unrefined as our mothers might be, plain 
and unvarnished as they might be in their language, 
accustomed as they might be to call things by their 
names, though they were not so very delicate as to 
use the word small-clothes ; and to be quite unable, 
in speaking of horn-cattle, horses, sheep, the canine 
race, and poultry, to designate them by their sexual 
appellations ; though they might not absolutely faint 
at hearing these appellations used by others ; rude 
and unrefined and indelicate as they might be, they 
did not suffer, in the cases alluded to, the approaches 
of men, which approaches arc unceremoniously suf- 
fered, and even sought, by their polished and refined 
and delicate daughters ; and of unmarried men too, 
in many cases ; and of very young men. 

237« From all antiquity this office was allotted 
to woman* MOSBS^S life was saved by the humanity 
of the Egyptian midwife ; and to the employment 
of females in this memorable case, the world is 
probably indebted for that which has been left it by 
that greatest of all lawgivers, whose institir 
rude as they were, have been the foundation of all 
the wisest and most just laws in all the countries of 
Europe and America. It was the fellou / of 

the midwife for the poor mother that saved Mo l->. 



V.] TO A FATHER. 189 

And none but a mother can, in such cases, feel to 
the full and effectual extent that which the operator 
ought to feel. She has been in the same state 
herself ; she knows more about the matter, except 
in cases of very rare occurrence, than any man, 
however great his learning and experience, can 
ever know. She knows all the previous symptoms ; 
she can judge more correctly than any man can 
judge in such a case ; she can put questions to the 
party, which a man cannot put ; the communication 
between the two is wholly without reserve ; the 
person of the one is given up to the other, as com- 
pletely as her ow T n is under her command. This 
never can be the case with a man-operator ; for, 
after all that can be said or done, the native feeling of 
women, in whatever rank of life, will, in these cases, 
restrain them from saying and doing, before a man, 
even before a husband, many things which they ought 
to say and do. So that, perhaps, even with regard 
to the bare question of comparative safety to life, the 
midwife is the preferable person. 

238. But safety to life is not ALL. The pre- 
servation of life is not to be preferred to EVERY 
THING. Ought not a man to prefer death to the 
commission of treason against his country ? Ought 
not a man to die, rather than save his life by the 
prostitution of his wife to a tyrant, who insists upon 
the one or the other ? Every man and every woman 
will answer in the affirmative to both these questions. 
There are, then, cases when people ought to submit 
to certain death. Surely, then, the mere chance, the 
mere possibility of it, ought not to outweigh the 
mighty considerations on the other side ; ought not 
to overcome that inborn modesty, that sacred reserve 
as to their persons, which, as I said before, is the 
charm of charms of the female sex, and which our 



190 coBmmpVi adyii e [Letter 

mothers, rude as they are culled by us, took, wo may 

be satisfied, the best and most effectual means of 

preserving. 

289. But is there, after all, any thing real In this 
greater security for the life or either mother or 
child ? If, then, risk were so great as to call upon 
women to overcome this natural repugnance to suffer 
the approaches of a man, that risk must b rdl; 

it must apply to all women ; and, further, it m 
ever since the creation of man, always have so ap- 
plied. Now, resorting to the emplovment of man- 
operators has not been in vogue in Europe more than 
about seventy years, and has not been general in 
England more than about thirty or forty years. So 
that the risk in employing midwives must, of late 
vears, have become vastly greater than it was even 
when I was a boy, or the whole race must have been 
extinguished long ago. And, then, how puzzled we 
should be to account for the building of all the 
cathedrals, and all the churches, and the draining of 
all the marshes, and all the fens, more than a thou- 
sand years before the word " accoucheur" ever came 
from the lips of woman, and before the thought came 
into her mind ? And here, even in the use of this 
word, we have a specimen of the refined delicacy of 
the present age; here we have, varnish the matter 
over how we may, modesty in the word and grossness 
in the thought* Farmers' wives, daughters, and 
maids, cannot now allude to, or hear named, without 
hlnslt'tnf/, those ailairs of the homestead, which they, 
within my memory, used to talk about as freely as of 
milking or spinning: but, have they become more 
really m<j(lest than their mothers were ? Has this 
refinement made them more continent than those rude 
mothers : A jury at Westminster gOVO, about SIX 

damages to a man. calling hims> ntle- 



V.] TO A FATHER, 191 

man, against a farmer, because the latter, for the pur- 
pose for which such animals are kept, had a bull 
in his yard, on which the windows of the gentleman 
looked ! The plaintiff alleged, that this was so 
offensive to his wife and daughters, that, if the de- 
fendant were not compelled to desist, he should be 
obliged to brick up his windows, or to quit the house ! 
If I had been the father of these, at once, delicate and 
curious daughters, I would not have been the herald 
of their purity of mind ; and if I had been the suitor 
of one of them, I would have taken care to give up 
the suit with all convenient speed ; for how could I 
reasonably have hoped ever to be able to prevail on 
delicacy, so exquisite, to commit itself to a pair of 
bridal sheets ? In spite, however, of all this " re- 
finement in the human mind/' which is everlastingly 
dinned in our ears ; in spite of the " small-clothes" 
and of all the other affected stuff, we have this con- 
clusion, this indubitable proof, of the falling off in 
real delicacy ; namely, that common prostitutes, 
formerly unknown, now swarm in our towns, and 
are seldom wanting even in our villages ; and where 
there was one illegitimate child (including those 
coming before the time) only fifty years ago, there 
are now twenty. 

240. And who can say how far the employment of 
men, in the cases alluded to, may have assisted in pro- 
ducing this change, so disgraceful to the present age, 
and so injurious to the female sex ? The prostitution 
and the swarms of illegitimate children have a natural 
and inevitable tendency to lessen that respect, and 
that kind and indulgent feeling, which is due from 
all men to virtuous women. It is well known that 
the unworthy members of any profession, calling, or 
rank, in life, cause, by their acts, the whole body to 
sink in the general esteem ; it is well known, that the 
habitual dishonesty of merchants trading abroad, the 



192 COBBBTt's advk i [Letter 

habitual profligate behaviour of travellers from home, 
the frequent proofs of abject submission to tyrants ; 

ii is well known that these may give the character ol 
dishonesty, profligacy, or cowardice, to a whole* nation. 
There are, doubtless, many men in Switzerland, 
who abhor the infamous practices of men selling 
ihemselveSy by whole regiments, to fight for any 
foreign state thai will pay them, no matter in what 
cause, and no matter whether against their own 
parents or brethren; but the censure falls upon the 
whole nation: and "no money no Swiss, 93 is a proverb 
throughout the world. It is, amidst those scenes of 
prostitution and bastardy, impossible for men in 
general to respect the female sex to the degree that 
they formerly did; while numbers will be apt to 
adopt the unjust sentiment of the old bachelor, Pope, 
that "every ivoman is, at hearty a rake." 

211. Who knows, I say, in what degree the em- 
ployment of '//^-operators may have tended to pro- 
duce this change, so injurious to the female si 
Aye, and to encourage unfeeling and brutal men to 
propose that the dead bodies of females, if poor, 
should be sold for the purpose of exhibition and dis- 
section before an audience of men ; a proposition 
that our " rude ancestors " would have answered, not 
by words, but by blows ! Alas ! our women may 
talk of " small-clothes ,J> as long as they please ; they 
may blush to scarlet at hearing animals designated by 
their sexual appellations; it may, to give the world a 
proof of our excessive modesty and delicacy, even 
pass a law (indeed we have done it) to punish " an 
" exposure of the person ;'* but as long as our streets 

irm with prostitutes, our asylums and private 
houses with bastards; as long as we have mt /^-ope- 
rators in the delicate eases alluded to, and as long as 
the exhibiting of the dead body of a virtuous female 
before an audience ol' men shall not be punished by 



I 



V.] TO A FATHER. 193 

the law, and even with death ; as long as we shall ap- 
pear to be satisfied in this state of things, it becomes 
us, at any rate, to be silent about purity of mind, im- 
provement of manners, and an increase of refine- 
ment and delicacy. 

242. This practice has brought the "doctor" into 
every family in the kingdom, which is of itself no 
small evil. I am not thinking of the expense ; for, 
in cases like these, nothing in that way ought to be 
spared. If necessary to the safety of his wife, a 
man ought not only to part with his last shilling, but 
to pledge his future labour. But we all know that 
there are imaginary ailments, many of which are ab- 
solutely created by the habit of talking with or about 
the " doctor" Read the u Domestic Medicine," 
and by the time that you have done, you will imagine 
that you have, at times, all the diseases of which it 
treats. This practice has added to, has doubled, aye, 
has augmented, I verily believe, tenfold the number 
of the gentlemen who are, in common parlance, called 
u doctom ;" at which, indeed, I, on my own private 
account, ought to rejoice ; for, invariably I have, even 
in the worst of times, found them every where among 
my staunchest and kindest friends. But, though 
these gentlemen are not to blame for this, any more 
than attorneys are for their increase in number ; and 
amongst these gentlemen, too, I have, with very few 
exceptions, always found sensible men and zealous 
friends ; though the parties pursuing these profes- 
sions are not to blame; though the increase of attor- 
neys has arisen from the endless number and the 
complexity of the laws, and from the tenfold mass of 
crimes caused by poverty arising from oppressive 
taxation ; and though the increase of " doctors 5 ' has 
arisen from the diseases and the imaginary ailments 
arising from that effeminate luxury which has been 
created by the drawing of wealth from the many, and 

K 



194 cobb« ovice [Letter 

giving it to the few ; and as the lower elasses will 
always endeavour to imitate the higher, so the 

i€ aecouchewf* lias, along with the ''small-clothes" 

descended from the loanmonger's palace down to the 
hovel of the pauper, there to take his fee out of the 
poor-ratefl ; though these parties are not to blame, 
the thing is not less an evil. Both professions have 
lost in character, in proportion to the increase in the 
number of its members ; peaches, if thev grew on 
hedges, would rank but little above the berries of the 
bramble. 

213. But to return once more to the matter of risk 
of life ; ban it be that nature has so ordered it, that. 
as a general thing, the life of either mother or child 
shall be in danger, even if there were no attendant at 
all? Can this he ? Certainly it cannot : safety must 
be the rule, and danger the exception ; this must be 
the case, or the world never could have been 
peopled ; and, perhaps, in ninety-nine cases out of 
everv hundred, if nature were left wholly to her- 
self] all would be right. The great doctor, in these 
cases, is, comforting, consoling, cheering up. And 
who can perform this office like women' who have 
for these occasions a language and sentiments which 
seem to have been invented for the purpose ; and 
be they what they may as to general demeanor 
and character, they have all, upon these occasions, 
one common feeling, and that so amiable, so excel- 
lent, as to admit of no adequate description. They 
completely forget, for the time, all rivalships, all 
squabbles, all animosities, all haired even ; every 
one feels as if it were her own particular concern. 

24 1. These, we may be well assured, are the proper 
attendants on these occasions ; the mother, the 
aunt, the sister, the cousin, and the female neigh- 
bour ; these are the suitable attendants, having 
some experienced woman to afford extraordinary 



V.] TO A FATHER. 195 

aid, if such be necessary ; and in the few cases 
where the preservation of life demands the sur- 
geon's skill, he is always at hand. The contrary 
practice, which we got from the French, is not, 
however, so general in France as in England. We 
have outstripped all the world in this, as we have 
in every thing which proceeds from luxury and 
effeminacy on the one hand, and from poverty on 
the other ; the millions have been stripped of their 
means to heap wealth on the thousands, and have 
been corrupted in manners, as well as in morals, by 
vicious examples set them by the possessors of that 
wealth. As reason says that the practice of which 
I complain cannot be cured without a total change 
in society, it would be presumption in me to expect 
such cure from any efforts of mine. I therefore 
must content myself with hoping that such change 
will come, and with declaring, that if I had to live 
my life over again, I would act upon the opinions 
which I have thought it my bounden duty here to 
state and endeavour to maintain. 

245. Having gotten over these thorny places as 
quickly as possible, I gladly come back to the 
Babies ; with regard to whom I shall have no pre- 
judices, no affectation, no false pride, no sham fears 
to encounter ; every heart (except there be one made 
of flint) being with me here. "Then were there 
" brought unto him little children, that he should put 
" his hands on them and pray : and the disciples 
66 rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little 
" children, and forbid them not to come unto me ; 
" for of such is the kingdom of heaven." A figure 
most forcibly expressive of the character and beauty 
of innocence, and, at the same time, most aptly illus- 
trative of the doctrine of regeneration. And where 
is the man ; the woman who is not fond of babies is 
not worthy the name ; but where is the man who 

k 2 



19G OOBBBTT'fl ADVICE [Letter 

doea no! feel his heart softened ; who does not feel 
himself become gentler; who docs not lose all the 
hardness of his temper; when, in any way, for any 

purpose, or by any body, an appeal is made to liim 

in behalf of these so helpless and so perfectly in- 
nocent little creatures ? 

246, SHAK8PKARBj who is cried up as the great 
interpreter of the human heart, has said, that the man 
in whose soul there is no music, or love of niusie. 
" fit for murders, treasons,, stratagems, and spoil 
"Our immortal bard/' as the profligate Sheridan 
used to call him in public, while he laughed at him 
in private; our "immortal bard" seems to have 
forgotten that Shadrach, Mcshach, and Abediu 
were flung into the fiery furnace (made seven tin 
hotter than usual) amidst the sound of the cornet, 
flute, harp, sackbut, and dulcimer, and all kinds 
of music; he seems to have forgotten that it was 
a music and a dance-loving damsel that chose, as a 
recompense for her elegant performance, the bloody 
head of John the Baptist, brought to her in a 
charger; he seems to have forgotten that, while 
Rome burned, Nero fiddled : he did not know, per- 
haps, that cannibals always dance and sing while 
their victims are roasting ; but he might have 
known, and he must have known, that England's 
greatest tyrant, Henry YIII., had, as hi in 

blood, Thomas Cromwell, expressed it, "his sweet 
" soul enwrapped in the celestial sounds of music;" 
and this was just at the time when the ferocious 
tyrant was ordering Catholics and Protestants to be 
tied back to back on the same hurdle, dragged to 
Smithfield on that hurdle, ami there tied to, and 
burnt from, the same stake. Shakspeare must have 
known these things, for he lived immediately after 
their date ; and if he had lived in our day, he would 

have seen instances enough ol I sows en- 



i 



V.] TO A FATHER. 19? 

wrapped in the same manner, and capable, if not of 
deeds equally bloody, of others, discovering a total 
want of feeling for sufferings not unfrequently occa- 
sioned by their own wanton waste, and waste arising, 
too, in part, from their taste for these " celestial 
" sounds." 

247. O 110 ! the heart of man is not to be known 
by this test : a great fondness for music is a mark of 
great weakness, great vacuity of mind : not of hard- 
ness of heart ; not of vice ; not of downright folly ; 
but of a want of capacity, or inclination, for sober 
thought. This is not always the case : accidental 
circumstances almost force the taste upon people : 
but, generally speaking, it is a preference of sound 
to sense. ^ But the man, and especially the father, 
who is not fond of babies ; who does not feel his 
heart softened when he touches their almost boneless 
limbs ; when he sees their little eyes first begin to 
discern; when he hears their tender accents ; the man 
whose heart does not beat truly to this test, is, to say 
the best of him, an object of compassion. 

248. But the mother's feelings are here to be thought 
of too ; for, of all gratifications, the very greatest 
that a mother can receive, is notice taken of, and 
praise bestowed on, her baby. The moment that 
gets into her arms, every thing else diminishes in 
value, the father only excepted. Her own personal 
charms, notwithstanding all that men say and have 
written on the subject, become, at most, a secondary 
object as soon as the baby arrives. A saying of the 
old, profligate King of Prussia is frequently quoted 
in proof of the truth of the maxim, that a woman will 
forgive any thing but calling her ugly ; a very true 
maxim, perhaps, as applied to prostitutes, whether in 
high or low life ; but a pretty long life of observation 
has told me, that a mother, worthy of the name, will 
care little about what you say of her person, so that 



198 coihjktt\s advice Letter 

you will but extol the beauty of her bain-. Hei baby 

is always tlie very prettiest that ever was burn ! It 
is always ;n eighth wonder of the world ! And thus it 
ought to be, or there would be a want of that won- 
drous attachment to it which is necessary to bear her 

up through all those cares and pains and toils insepa- 
rable from the preservation of its life and health. 

211). It is, however, of the pail which the 
lias to act, in participating in these cares and to 
that I am now to speak. Let no man imagine that 
the world will despise him for helping to take care of 
his own child : thoughtless fools may attempt to 
ridicule; the unfeeling few may join in the attempt ; 
but all, whose good opinion is worth having, will 
applaud his conduct, and will, in many cases, be dis- 
posed to repose confidence in him on that very 
account. To say of a man that he is fond of his 
family, is, of itself, to say that, in private life at least, 
he is a good and trust-worthy man ; aye, and in 
public life too, pretty much ; for it is no easy matter 
to separate the two characters ; and it is naturally 
concluded, that he who has been flagrantly wanting 
in feeling for his own flesh and blood, will not be 
very sensitive towards the rest of mankind. There 
is nothing more amiable, nothing more delightful 
behold, than a youny man especially taking part in 
the work of nursing the children ; and how often 
have 1 admired this in the labouring men in Hamp- 
shire ! It is, indeed, generally the same all o 
England ; and as to America, it would be deemed 
brutal for a man not to take his full share of thl 
cares and labours. 

250. The man who is to gain a living by his la- 
bour, must be drawn away from home, or, at least, 
from the cradle-side, in order to perform that la- 
bour ; but this will not, if he be made of good stuff', 
prevent him from doing his share of the duty due 



V.] TO A FATHER. 199 

to his children. There are still many hours in the 
twenty-four, that he will have to spare for this duty ; 
and there ought to be no toils, no watchings, no 
breaking of rest, imposed by this duty, of which he 
ought not to perform his full share, and that, too, 
without grudging. This is strictly due from him in 
payment for the pleasures of the marriage state. 
What right has he to the sole possession of a wo- 
man's person ; what right to a husband's vast autho- 
rity ; what right to the honourable title and the 
boundless power of father : what right has^ he to 
all, or any of these, unless he can found his claim on 
the faithful performance of all the duties which these 
titles imply ? 

251. One great source of the unhappiness amongst 
mankind arises, however, from a neglect of these 
duties ; but, as if by way of compensation for their 
privations, they are much more duly performed by 
the poor than by the rich. The fashion of the 
labouring people is this: the husband, when free 
from his toil in the fields, takes his share in the 
nursing, which he manifestly looks upon as a sort of 
reward for his labour. However distant from his 
cottage, his heart is always at that home towards 
which he is carried, at night, by limbs that feel not 
their weariness, being urged on by a heart antici- 
pating the welcome of those who attend him there. 
Those who have, as I so many hundreds of times have^ 
seen the labourers in the woodland parts of Hamp- 
shire and Sussex, coming at night-fall towards their 
cottage wickets, laden with fuel for a day or two ; 
whoever has seen three or four little creatures look- 
ing out for the fathers approach, running in to an- 
nounce the glad tidings, and then scampering out to 
meet him, clinging round his knees, or hanging on 
his skirts ; whoever has witnessed scenes like this, 
to witness which has formed one of the greatest 



200 cohjskttV am\j( i [Letter 

delight oi my life, will hesitate long before he pfrefei 
a lift or ease to a life of labour; before he prefer a 
communication with children intercepted by ser- 
vants and teachers to that communication which 

here direct, and which admits not of any division of 
affection, 

252, Then comes the Sunday ; and amongst all 
those who keep no servants, a great deal depends 
on the manner in which the Father employs that 
day, AYhcn there are two or three children, or even 
one child; the first thing after the breakfast (which is 
late on this day of rest), is to wash and dress the 
child or children. Then, while the mother is dress- 
ing the dinner, the father, being in his Sunday- 
clothes himself, takes care of the child or children. 
When dinner is over, the mother puts on her best ; 
and then, all go to church, or, if that cannot be, 
whether from distance or other cause, all pass the 
afternoon together. This used to be the way of life 
amongst the labouring people; and from this way of 
life arose the most able and most moral people that 
the world ever saw, until grinding taxation took from 
them the means of obtaining a sufficiency of food 
and of raiment ; plunged the whole, good and bad, 
into one indiscriminate mass, under the degrading 
and hateful name of paupers. 

253. The working man, in whatever line, and 
whither in town or country, who spends his day qf 
testy or any part of it, except in case of absolute 
necessity^ away from his wife and children, is not 
worthy of the name of father, and is seldom worthy 
of the trust of any employer. Such absence argues 
a want of fatherly and of conjugal affection, which 
want is generally duly repaid by a similar want in 
the neglected parties ; and, though stern authority 
may command and enforce obedience for awhile, 
the time soon comes when it will be set at defiance ; 



V.] TO A FATHER. 201 

and • when such a father, having no example, no 
proofs of love, to plead, complains of filial ingra- 
titude, the silent indifference of his neighbours, and, 
which is more poignant, his own heart, will tell him 
that his complaint is unjust. 

254. Thus far with regard to working people ; 
but much more necessary is it to inculcate these 
principles in the minds of young men in the middle 
rank of life, and to be more particular, in their 
case, with regard to the care due to very young 
children, for here servants come in ; and many are 
but too prone to think, that when they have handed 
their children over to well-paid and able servants, 
they have done their duty by them, than which there 
can hardly be a more mischievous error. The chil- 
dren of the poorer people are, in general, much 
fonder of their parents than those of the rich are of 
theirs : this fondness is reciprocal ; and the cause 
is, that the children of the former have, from their 
very birth, had a greater share than those of the 
latter — of the personal attention, and of the never- 
ceasing endearments of their parents. 

255. I have before urged upon young married 
men, in the middle walks of life, to keep the servants 
out of the house as long as possible; and when they 
must come at last, when they must be had even to 
assist in taking care of children, let them be assist- 
ants in the most strict sense of the word ; let them 
not be confided in ; let children never be left to 
them alone; and the younger the child, the more 
necessary a rigid adherence to this rule. I shall be 
told, perhaps, by some careless father, or some 
play-hunting mother, that female servants are wo- 
men, and have the tender feelings of women. Very 
true ; and, in general, as good and kind in their 
nature as the mother herself. But they are not the 
mothers of your children, and it is not in nature that 

k 5 



202 t obbi 1 1 -"s advice [Lettei 

they should have the care and anxiety adequate 

to the necessity oi* the case. Out of the immediate 
care and personal superintendence of one or the 
other of the parents, or oi* some trusty relation, no 
young child ought to be goffered to be, if there be, 
at whatever sacrifice of ease or of property, any 
possibility of preventing it : because, to insure, if 
possible, the perfect form, the straight limbs, the 
sound body, and the sane mind of your children, is 
the very first of all your duties. To provide for- 
tunes for them ; to make provision for their future 
fame ; to give them the learning necessary to the 
calling for which you destine them : all these may 
be duties, and the last is a duty; but a duty far 
greater than, and prior to, all these, is the duty of 
neglecting nothing within your power to insure 
them a sane mind m a sound and undefomted body* 
And, good God! how many are the instances of 
deformed bodies, of crooked limbs, of idiocy, or of 
deplorable imbecility, proceeding solely from young 
children being left to the care of servants ! One 
would imagine, that one single sight of this kind to 
be seen, or heard of, in a whole nation, would be 
sufficient to deter parents from the practice. And 
what, then, must those parents feel, who have 
brought this life-long sorrow on themselves ! When 
once the thing is done, to repent is unavailing. And 
what is now the worth of all the ease and all the 
pleasures, to enjoy which the poor sufferer was aban- 
doned to the care of servants ! 

256; What ! can I plead v.ramph\ then, in sup- 
port of this rigid precept ? Did we, who have bred 
up a family of children, and have had servants 
during the greater part of the time. 
young child to the care of servants ? Never ; no, 
not for one wngle hour. Were we, then, tied con- 
tantly to the house with them ? No; for we some- 






V.] TO A FATHER. 203 

times took them out; but one or the other of us 
was always ivith them, until, in succession, they were 
able to take good care of themselves ; or until the 
elder ones were able to take care of the younger, and 
then they sometimes stood sentinel in our stead. 
How could we visit then ? Why, if both went, we 
bargained beforehand to take the children with us : 
and if this were a thing not to be proposed, one of 
us went, and the other stayed at home, the latter 
being very frequently my lot. From this we never 
once deviated. We cast aside all consideration 
of convenience; all calculations of expense; all 
thoughts of pleasure of every sort. And, what 
could have equalled the reward that we have re- 
ceived for our care and for our unshaken resolution 
in this respect ? 

257. In the rearing of children, there is resolution 
wanting as well as tenderness. That parent is not 
truly affectionate who wants the courage to do that 
which is sure to give the child temporary pain. A 
great deal in providing for the health and strength 
of children, depends upon their being duly and daily 
washed, when well, in cold water from head to foot. 
Their cries testify to what a degree they dislike this. 
They squall and kick and twist about at a fine rate ; 
and many mothers, too many, neglect this, partly 
from reluctance to encounter the squalling, and 
partly, and much too often, from what I will not 
call idleness, but to which I cannot apply a milder 
term than neglect. Well and duly performed, it is 
an hour's good tight work ; for, besides the bodily 
labour, which is not very slight when the child gets 
to be five or six months old, there is the singing to 
overpower the voice of the child. The moment the 
stripping of the child used to begin, the singing 
used to begin, and the latter never ceased till the 
former had ceased. After having heard this go on 



204 COBBBTT^fi \ i » \ [( E [Letter 

with all my children, Rousseau taught me the phi- 
losophy of it. I happened, by accident; to look into 
bis BmilEj and there I found him saying, that the 
nurse subdued the voice of the child and made it 
quiet, by drowning its voice in hers, and thereby 
making it perceive that it could not be heard, and 
that to continue to cry was of no avail. u Here, 
" Nancy," said I (going to lier with tlic book in 
my hand), "you have been a great philosopher all 
" your life, without either of us knowing it." A 
silent nurse is a poor soul. It is a great disadvanfc 
to the child, if the mother be of a very silent, placid, 
quiet turn. The singing, the talking to, the tossing 
and rolling about, that mothers in general practise, 
are very beneficial to the children : they give them 
exercise, awaken their attention, animate them, and 
rouse them to action. It is very bad to have a 
child even carried about by a dull, inanimate, silent 
servant, who will never talk, sing or chirrup to it ; 
who will but just carry it about, always kept in the 
same attitude, and seeing and hearing nothing to 
give it life and spirit. It requires nothing but a 
dull creature like this, and the washing and dressing 
left to her, to give a child the rickets, and make 
it, instead of being a strong straight person, tup- 
shinned, bow-kneed, or hump-backed; besides other 
ailments not visible to the eye. By-and-by, when 
* the deformity begins to appear, the doctor is called 

o in, but it is too late: the mischief is done ; and a 

£ few months of neglect are punished by a life of mor- 

^ tification and sorrow, not wholly unaccompanied 

with shame. 

258. It is, therefore, a very spurious kind of toi- 
derness that prevents a mother from doing the thi 
which, though disagreeable to the child, are so ne- 
cessarv to its lasting well-being. The washing daily 
in the morning is a great thing ; cold water winter 



c 



v 



V.] TO A FATHER. 205 

or summer, and this never left to a servant, who has 
not, in such a case, either the patience or the courage 
that is necessary for the task. When the washing is 
over, and the child dressed in its day-clothes, how 
gay and cheerful it looks ! The exercise gives it 
appetite, and then disposes it to rest ; and it sucks 
and sleeps and grows, the delight of all eyes, and 
particularly those of the parents. " I can't bear 
"that squalling!" I have heard men say; and to 
which I answer, that " I can^t bear such men I" 
There are, I thank God, very few of them ; for, if 
they do not always reason about the matter, honest 
nature teaches them to be considerate and indulgent 
towards little creatures so innocent and so helpless 
and so unconscious of what they do. And the noise : 
after all, why should it disturb a man? He knows 
the exact cause of it : he knows that it is the una- 
voidable consequence of a great good to his child, 
and of course to him : it lasts but an hour, and the 
recompense instantly comes in the looks of the rosy 
child, and in the new hopes which every look ex- 
cites. It never disturbed me, and my occupation 
was one of those most liable to disturbance by noise. 
Many a score papers have I written amidst the noise 
of children, and in my whole life never bade them 
be still, When they grew up to be big enough to 
gallop about the house, I have, in w r et weather, 
when they could not go out, written the whole day 
amidst noise that would have made some authors 
half mad. It never annoyed me at all. But a 
Scotch piper, whom an old lady, who lived beside 
us at Brompton, used to pay to come and play a 
long tune every day, I was obliged to bribe into a 
breach of contract. That which you are pleased 
with, however noisy, does not disturb you. That 
which is indifferent to you has not more effect. 
The rattle of coaches, the clapper of a mill, the fall 



206 cobjjett'.s advj( i [Lettei 

of water, leave your mind undisturbed. J5ut the 
and of the pipe, awakening the idea of the lazy life 

of the pipeij better paid than the labouring man, 

drew the mind aside from its pursuit; and, as it really 

was a an /sauce, occasioned by the money of mv 
neighbour, I thought myself justified in abating it by 
the same sort of means. 

259. The cradle is in poor families necessary; 
because necessity compels the mother to get as 
much time as she can for her work, and a child can 
rock the cradle. At first we had a cradle ; and I 
rocked the cradle, in great part, during the time 
that I was writing my first work, that famous 
Maitrk i)'Ax(inois, which has long been the first 
book in Europe, as well as in America, for teaching 
of French people the English language. But we 
left off the use of the cradle as soon as possible. 
It causes sleep more, and oftener, than necessary : 
it saves trouble ; but to take trouble was our duty. 
After the second child, we had no cradle, however 
difficult at first to do without it. When I was not 
at my business, it was generally my affair to put the 
child to sleep : sometimes by sitting with it in un- 
arms, and sometimes by lying down on a bed with 
if, till it fell asleep. We soon found the good of 
this method. The children did not sleep so much, 
but they slept more soundly. The cradle produces 
a sort of dozing, or dreaming sleep. This is a mai In 
of great importance, as every thing must be th.it has 
any influence on the health of children. The poor 
must use the cradle, at least until they have other 
children big enough to hold the baby, and to put it 
to sleep; and it is truly wonderful at how early an 
age thev, either girls or boys, will do this busin* 
faithfully and well. You see them in the lanes, and 
on the skirts of woods and commons, lugging a baby 
about, when it sometimes weighs half as much as 



V.] TO A FATHER. 207 

the nurse. The poor mother is frequently com- 
pelled, in order to help to get bread for her children, 
to go to a distance from home, and leave the group, 
baby and all, to take care of the house and of them- 
selves, the eldest of four or five, not, perhaps, above 
six or seven years old; and it is quite surprising, 
that, considering the millions of instances in which 
this is done in England, in the course of a year, so 
very, very few accidents or injuries arise from the 
practice ; and not a hundredth part so many as arise 
in the comparatively few instances in which children 
are left to the care of servants. In summer-time you 
see these little groups rolling about up the green, or 
amongst the heath, not far from the cottage, and at a 
mile, perhaps, from any other dwelling, the dog 
their only protector. And what fine and straight 
and healthy and fearless and acute persons they 
become ! It used to be remarked in Philadelphia, 
when I lived there, that there was not a single man 
of any eminence, whether doctor, lawyer, merchant, 
trader, or any thing else, that had not been born and 
bred in the country^ and of parents in a low state of 
life. Examine London, and you w r ill find it much 
about the same. From this very childhood they are 
from necessity entrusted with the care of something 
valuable. They practically learn to think, and to 
calculate as to consequences. They are thus taught 
to remember things ; and it is quite surprising what 
memories they have, and how scrupulously a little 
carter-boy will deliver half-a-dozen messages, each of 
a different purport from the rest, to as many persons, 
all the messages committed to him at one and the 
same time, and he not knowing one letter of the al- 
phabet from another. When I want to remember 
something, and am out in the field, and cannot write 
it down, I say to one of the men, or boys, come to 
me at such a time, and tell me so and so. He is sure 



208 conuhTT'.- advice Lettei 

todoil j audi therefore look upon the memorandum 

written down. One of these children, boy or girl, is 
much more wortliv of being entrusted with the care 
of a baby, any body's baby, than a servant-maid 
with curled locks and with eves rolling about for ad- 
mirers. The locks and the rolling eyes, verv nice, 
and, for aught I know, very proper things in them- 
selves ; but incompatible with the care 1 of your 
baby, Ma'am ; her mind being absorbed in con- 
templating the interesting circumstances which are to 
precede her having a sweet baby ot her own ; and a 
sweeter than yours, if you please, Ma'am; or, at 
least, such will be her anticipations. And this is all 
right enough ; it is natural that she should think and 
feel thus ; and knowing this, you are admonished 
that it is your bounden duty not to delegate this 
sacred trust to any body. 

260. The courage, of which I have spoken, so ne- 
cessary in the case of washing the children in spite 
of their screaming remonstrances, is., if possible, 
more necessary in cases of illness, requiring the ap- 
plication of medicine, or of surgical means of cure. 
Here the heart is put to the test indeed ! Hen 
anguish to be endured by a mother, who has to force 
down the nauseous physic, or to apply the torment- 
ing plaster ! Yet it is the mother, or the father, 
and more properly the former, who is to perform 
this duty of exquisite pain. To no nurse, to no 
hireling, to no alien hand, ought, if possible to avoid 
it, this task to be committed. I do not admire those 
mothers who are too tender-hearted to inflict this pain 
on their children, and who, therefore, leave it to be 
indicted by others, (jive me the mother who, while 
the tears stream down her face, has the resolution 
scrupulously to execute, with her own hands, the 
doctor's commands. Will a servant, will any hire- 
ling do this? Committed to such hands, the lei 






V.] TO A FATHER* 209 

trouble will be preferred to the greater : the thing 
will, in general, not be half done ; and if done, the 
suffering from such hands is far greater in the mind 
of the child than if it came from the hands of the 
mother. In this case, above all others, there ought to 
be no delegation of the parental office. Here life or 
limb is at stake; and the parent, man or woman, 
who, in any one point, can neglect his or her duty 
here, is unworthy of the name of parent. And here, 
as in all the other instances, where goodness in the 
parents towards the children gives such weight to 
their advice when the children grow up, what a 
motive to filial gratitude ! The children who are 
old enough to discern and remember, will witness 
this proof of love and self-devotion in their mother. 
Each of them feels that she has done the same 
towards them all ; and they love her and admire 
and revere her accordingly. 

261. This is the place to state my opinions, and 
the result of my experience, with regard to that 
fearful disease the Small-Pox; a subject, too, to 
which I have paid great attention. I was always, 
from the very first mention of the thing, opposed to 
the Cow-Pox scheme. If efficacious in preventing 
the Small- Pox, I objected to it merely on the score 
of its beastliness. There are some things, surely, 
more hideous than death, and more resolutely to be 
avoided ; at any rate, more to be avoided than the 
mere risk of suffering death. And, amongst other 
things, I always reckoned that of a parent causing 
the blood, and the diseased blood too, of a beast to 
be put into the veins of human beings, and those 
beings the children of that parent. I, therefore, as 
will be seen in the pages of the Register of that day, 
most strenuously opposed the giving of tiventy thou- 
sand pounds to JENNERowi of the taxes, paid in great 
part by the working-people, which I deemed and 



210 coiiiij. ii aj>vi< [Lettei 

asserted to be a scandalous waste of the public 

mom 

. 1 contended, that this beastly application 
could not) in nature* be efficacious in preventing the 

: and that, even if ellicacious for tliat 

purpose, it was wholly unnecessary. The truth of 

the former of these assertions has now been proved 
in thousands upon thousands of instances. For a lo 
time., for ten years, the contrary was boldly and bra- 
aenly asserted. This nation is fond of quackery of 
all sorts; and this particular quackery having been 
sanctioned by King, Lords and Commons, it spread 
over the country like a pestilence borne by the 
winds. Speedily sprang up the €€ ROYAL Jcn- 
nerian Institution," and Branch Institutions, issuing 
from the parent trunk, set instantly to work, im- 
pregnating the veins of the rising and enlightened 
generation with the beastly matter. " Gentlemen 
and Ladies" made the commodity a pocket-com- 
panion ; and if a cottager's child (in Hampshire at 
least), even seen by them, on a common, were not 
pretty quick in taking to its heels, it had to cam 
off more or less of the disease of the cow. One 
would have thought, that one-half of the cows in 
England must have been tapped to get at such a 
quantity of the stuff. 

l?<;.j. In the midst of all this mad work, to which 
the doctors, after having found it in vain to resist, 
had yielded, the real suiall-poj ", in its worst form, 
broke out in the town of RlNGWOOD, in Hamp- 
shire, and carried off, I believe (I have not the ac- 
count at hand), more than a hundred persons, young 
and old, every one of irhorn had had the COW-j 
"so nicely !" And what was now said? Was the 
quackery exploded, and were the granters of the 
twenty thousand pounds ashamed of what they had 
done? Not at all: the failure was imputed to un- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 211 

skilful operators ; to the stateness of the matter : to 
its not being of the genuine quality. Admitting all 
this, the scheme stood condemned ; for the great 
advantages held forth were, that any body might 
perform the operation, and that the matter was 
every where abundant and cost free. But these were 
paltry excuses ; the mere shuffles of quackery ; for 
what do we know now ? Why, that in hundreds of 
instances, persons cow-poxed by JENNER HIM- 
SELF, have taken the real small-pox afterwards, 
and have either died from the disorder, or narrowly 
escaped with their lives ! I will mention two in- 
stances, the parties concerned being living and well- 
known, one of them to the whole nation, and the 
other to a very numerous circle in the higher walks 
of life. The first is Sir Richard Phillips, so well 
known by his able writings, and equally well known 
by his exemplary conduct as Sheriff of London, and 
by his life-long labours in the cause of real charity 
and humanity. Sir Richard had, I think, two sons, 
whose veins were impregnated by the grantee him- 
self At any rate he had one, who had, several 
years after Jenner had given him the insuring mat- 
ter, a very hard struggle for his life, under the hands 
of the good, old-fashioned, seam-giving, and dimple- 
dipping small-pox. The second is Philip Cqdd, 
Esq., formerly of Kensington, and now of Rumstecl 
Court, near Maidstone, in Kent, who has a son that 
had a very narrow escape under the real small-pox, 
about four years ago, and who also had been cow- 
poxed by Jenner himself This last-mentioned gen- 
tleman I have known, and most sincerely respected, 
from the time of our both being about eighteen 
years of age. When the young gentleman, of whom 
I am now speaking, was very young, I having him 
upon my knee one day, asked his kind and excel- 



212 comw.i i \ nvii i [Letter 

lent mother, whethei h< had been inoculated. "Oh, 
no !* said she, M we are going to have him vacci- 
nated. ' Whereupon I, going into the garden to the 
father, said, W I do hope, Codd, that you are not 

ne to have that beastly cow-stuff put into that 
fine boy/' " Why,** said he, "you see, Cobbett, it 
is to be done by denner himself" What answer I 

re, what; names and epithets I bestowed upon 
Jenner and his quackery, 1 will leave the reader to 
imagine. 

264. Now, here are instances enough ; but, every 
reader lias heard of, if not seen, scores of others. 
Young Mr. Codd caught the small-pox at a school; 
and if I recollect rightly, there were several othei 
w vaccinated " youths who did the same, at the same 
time. Quackery, however, has always a shuffle left. 
Now that the cow-pox has been proved to be no 
guarantee against the small-pox, it makes it " milder** 
when it comes ! A pretty shuffle, indeed, this ! You 
arc to be all your life in fear of if, having as your sole 
consolation, that when it comes (and it may overtake 
you in a camp, or on the seas), it will be " milder f* 
It was not too mild to kill at Ringwood, and its 
mildness, in the case of young Mr. Codd, did not 
restrain it from blinding him for a suitable number 
of days. I shall not easily forget the alarm and 
anxiety of the father and mother upon this occa- 
sion ; both of them the best of parents, and both 
of them now punished for having yielded lo this 
fashionable quackery. I will not say, justly pu- 
nished ; for affection for their children, in which 
respect they were never surpassed by any parents 
on earth, was the cause of their listening to the 
danger-obviating quackery. This, too, is the case 
with other parents ; but parents should be under 
the influence of reason and experience, as well as 



V.] TO A FATHER* 213 

under that of affection ; and now, at any rate, they 
ought to set this really dangerous quackery at 
naught. 

265. And, what does my own experience say on 
the other side ? There are my seven children, the 
sons as tall, or nearly so, as their father, and the 
daughters as tall as their mother ; all, in due suc- 
cession, inoculated with the good old-fashioned 
face-tearing small-pox ; neither of them with a 
single mark of that disease on their skins ; neither 
of them having been, that we could perceive, ill for 
a single hour, in consequence of the inoculation. 
When we were in the United States, we observed 
that the Americans were never marked with the 
small-pox i or, if such a thing were seen, it was 
very rarely. The cause we found to be, the uni- 
versal practice of having the children inoculated at 
the breast, and, generally, at a month or six weeks 
old. When we came to have children, we did the 
same, I believe that some of ours have been a few 
months old when the operation has been performed, 
but always while at the breast, and as early as pos- 
sible after the expiration of six weeks from the 
birth ; sometimes put off a little while by some 
slight disorder in the child, or on account of some 
circumstance or other ; but, with these exceptions, 
done at, or before, the end of six weeks from the 
birth, and always at the breast. All is then pure : 
there is nothing in either body or mind to favour 
the natural fury of the disease. We always took 
particular care about the source from which the in- 
fectious matter came. We employed medical men, 
in whom we could place perfect confidence: we had 
their solemn word for the matter coming from some 
healthy child ; and, at last, we had sometimes to wait 
for this, the cow-affair having rendered patients of 
this sort rather rare, 



2] A connnVs advk ("Letter 

2C>6. While the child lias the small-pox, the 
mother should abstain from food and drink, which 
she may require at other limes, but which might be 
too just now. To suckle a hearty child re- 

quires good Living : lor, besides that this b ,uv 

to the mother, it is also necessary to the child. A 
little forbearance, just at this time, is prudent ; 
making the diet as simple as possible, and avoiding 
all violent agitation either of the body or the 4 spirits; 
avoiding too, if you cam very hot or very cold 
weather. 

267- There is now, however, this inconvenience, 
that the greater part of the present young wo- 
men have been be-Jenriered ; so that they may 
Catch the beanhj-killint/ disease from their half 
To hearten them up, however, and more illy, 

I confess, to record a trait of maternal affection ami 
of female heroism, which I have never heard of any 
thing to surpass, I have the pride to say, that my 
wife had eight children inoculated at her breast, 
and never had the small-])0x in Iter tife. I, at first, 
objected to the inoculating of the child, but she in- 
sisted upon it, and with so much pertinacity that 1 
gave way, on condition that she would be inoculated 
too. This was done with three or four of the chil- 
dren, I think, she always being reluctant to have it 
done, saving that it looked like distrusting the 
goodness of God. There was, to be sure, very little 
in this argument ; but the long experience w 
away the alarm ; and there she is now, having had 
eight children hanging at her breast with that do- 
tting disease in them, and she never having been 
affected by it from first to last. All her children 
know, of course, the risk that she voluntarily in- 
curred tor them. They all have this indubitable 
proof, that she valued their lives above her own: 
and is it in nature, that they should ever wilfully do 



V.] TO A FATHER* 215 

anything to wound the heart of that mother ; and 
must not her bright example have great effect on 
their character and conduct ! Now, my opinion is, 
that the far greater part of English or American 
women, if placed in the above circumstances, would 
do just the same thing ; and I do hope, that those 
who have yet to be mothers, will seriously think of 
putting an end, as they have the power to do, to the 
disgraceful and dangerous quackery, the evils of 
which I have so fully proved, 

268. But there is, in the management of babies, 
something besides life, health, strength and beauty; 
and something too, without which all these put 
together are nothing worth ; and that is sanity of 
mind. There are, owing to various causes, some 
who are born idiots ; but a great many more be- 
come insane from the misconduct, or neglect, of 
parents ; and, generally, from the children being 
committed to the care of servants. I knew, in 
Pennsylvania, a child, as fine, and as sprightly, and 
as intelligent a child as ever was born, made an 
idiot for life by being, when about three years old, 
shut into a dark closet, by a maid-servant, in order 
to terrify it into silence. The thoughtless creature 
first menaced it with sending it to u the bad place" 
as the phrase is there ; and, at last, to reduce it to 
silence, put it into the closet, shut the door, and 
went out of the room. She went back, in a few 
minutes, and found the child in a fit. It recovered 
from that, but was for life an idiot. When the 
parents, who had been out two days and two nights 
on a visit of pleasure, came home, they were told that 
the child had had a fit ; but, they were not told the 
cause. The girl, however, who was a neighbours 
daughter, being on her death-bed about ten years 
afterwards, could not die in peace without sending 
for the mother of the child (now become a young 



21 G OOBBBTT'a advice [Letter 

man) and asking forgiveness of her. The mother 
herself was, however, the greatest offender of the 

two: a whole lifetime of sorrow and of mortifica- 
tion was a punishment loo light for her and her 

husband. Thousands upon thousands of human 
beings have been deprived of their senses by tin 
and similar means. 

269. It is not long since that we read, in the 
newspapers, of a child being absolutely killed, at 
Birmingham, I think it was, by being thus fright- 
ened. The parents had gone out into what is called 
an evening party. The servants, naturally enough. 
had their party at home ; and the mistress, who, 
by some unexpected accident, had been brought 
home at an early hour, finding the parlour full of 
company, ran up stairs to see about her child, about 
two or three years old. She found it with its e\ 
open, h\xt fixed; touching it, she found it inanimat 
The doctor was sent for in vain: it was quite dead. 
The maid affected to know nothing of the can 
but some one of the parties assembled discovered, 
pinned up to the curtains of the bed, a horrid fit/arc, 
made up partly of a frightful mask ! This, as the 
wretched girl confessed, had been done to keep the 
child quiet, while she was with her company below. 
When one reflects on the anguish that the poor 
little thing must have endured, before the life was 
quite frightened out of it, one can find no tei 
sufficiently strong to express the abhorrence due to 
the perpetrator of this crime, which was, in tact, a 
cruel murder; and, if it was beyond the reach of 
the law, it was so and is so, because, as in the <•; 
of parricide, the law, in making no provision for 
punishment peculiarly severe, has, out of respect to 
human nature, supposed such crimes to be imj 
sible* Hut it' the girl was criminal; if death, or a 
life of remorse, was her due, what wai the due of 



V.] TO A FATHER. 21 7 

her parents, and especially of the mother! And 
what was the clue of the father, who suffered that 
mother, and who, perhaps, tempted her to neglect 
her most sacred duty. 

270. If this poor child had been deprived of its 
mental faculties, instead of being deprived of its life, 
the cause would, in all likelihood, never have been 
discovered. The insanity would have been ascribed 
to " brain-fever" or to some other of the usual causes 
of insanity ; or, as in thousands upon thousands 
of instances, to some unaccountable cause. When 
I was, in No. IX., paragraphs from 227 to 233, 
both inclusive, maintaining with all my might, the 
unalienable right of the child to the milk of its 
mother, I omitted, amongst the evils arising from 
banishing the child from the mother's breast, to 
mention, or, rather, it had never occurred to me to 
mention, the loss of reason to the poor, innocent 
creatures, thus banished. And now, as connected 
with this measure, I have an argument of experience, 
enough to terrify every young man and woman upon 
earth from the thought of committing this offence 
against nature. I wrote No. IX. at Cambridge, 
on Sunday, the 28th of March ; and, before I quitted 
Shrewsbury, on the 14th of May, the follow- 
ing facts reached my ears. A very respectable 
tradesman, who, with his wife, have led a most 
industrious life, in a town that it is not necessary 
to name, said to a gentleman that told it to me : 
" I wish to God I had read No. IX. of Mr. Cob 
" bett's Advice to Young Men fifteen years 
"ago!" He then related, that he had had ten 
children, all put out to be suckled, in consequence of 
the necessity of his having the mother's assistance 
to carry on his business ; and that two out of the ten 
had come home idiots ; though the rest were all 
sane, and though insanity had never been, known in 



218 COBBITrfi advk [Letter 

the family of either father or mother! These pa- 
rents, whom I myself saw, are very clever people, 
and the wife singularly industrious and expert in 
her affairs. 

271. Now the motive, in this 0a8e, unquestionablv 
was good ; it was that the mother's valuable lime 
might, as much as possible, be devoted to the earn- 
ing of a competence for her children. But, alas! 
what is this competence to these two unfortunate 
beings! And what is the competence to the rest, 
when put in the scale against the mortification that 
they must, all their lives, suffer on account of the 
insanity of their brother and sister, exciting, as it 
must, in all their circle, and even in themseh 
suspicions of their own perfect soundness of mind ' 
When weighed against this consideration, what is 
all the wealth in the world ! And as to the parents, 
where are they to find compensation for such a cala- 
mity, embittered additionally too, by the reflection, 
that it was in their power to prevent it, and that 
nature, with loud voice, cried out to them to prevent 
it: Money! Wealth acquired in consequence of 
this banishment of these poor children ; these vic- 
tims of this, I will not call it avarice, but o\ 
eager love of gain ! wealth, thus acquired ! What 
wealth can console these parents for the loss of 
reason in these children ! Where is the father and 
the mother, who would not rather see their children 
ploughing in other men's fields, and sweeping other 
men's houses, than led about parks or houses of their 
own, objects of pity even of the menials procured by 
their wealth ? 

27-. If what I have now said be not sufficient to 
deter a man from suffering any consideration. 
matter what s to induce him to delegate the care of 
his children, when very young, to any body whom 
/*, nothing that I can say can possibly have that 



V.] TO A FATHER, 219 

effect ; and I will, therefore, now proceed to offer my 
advice with regard to the management of children 
when they get beyond the danger of being crazed or 
killed by nurses or servants. 

273. We here come to the subject of education in 
the true sense of that word, which is rearing up, 
seeing that the word comes from the Latin educo, 
which means to breed up, or to rear up. I shall, 
afterwards, have to speak of education in the now 
common acceptation of the word, which makes it 
mean, book-learning. At present, I am to speak of 
education in its true sense, as the French (who, as 
well as we, take the word from the Latin) always 
use it. They, in their agricultural works, talk of 
the '* education du Cochon, de l'AUouette," &c, that 
is, of the hog, the lark, and so of other animals ; 
that is to say, of the manner of breeding them, or 
rearing them up, from their being little things till 
they be of full size. 

274. The first thing, in the rearing of children, 
who have passed from the baby-state, is, as to the 
body, plenty of good food ; and, as to the mind, 
constant good example in the parents. Of the lat- 
ter I shall speak more by-and-by. With regard to 
the former, it is of the greatest importance, that 
children be well fed ; and there never was a greater 
error than to believe that they do not need good 
food. Every one knows, that to have fine horses, 
the colts must be kept well, and that it is the same 
with regard to all animals of every sort and kind. 
The fine horses and cattle and sheep all come from 
the rich pastures. To have them fine, it is not suffi- 
cient that they have plenty of food when young, but 
that they have rich food. Were there no land, no 
pasture, in England, but such as is found in Mid- 
dlesex, Essex, and Surrey, we should see none of 
those coach-horses and dray-horses, whose height and 

I- 2 



roHRF/rr's advk [Letter 

Bise make us stare. It is the letj) wJten young thai 

makes the fine animal. 

4 2 7 "> . There is no other reason for the people in 
the American States being generally so mueh taller 
and Btronger than the people in England arc. 
Their forefathers went, for the greater part, from 

England. In the four Northern States they went 
wholly from England, and then, on their landing, 

they founded a new London, a new Falmouth, a 
new Plymouth, a new Portsmouth, a new Dover, 
a new Yarmouth, a new Lynn, a new Boston, and 

a new Hull, and the country itself they called, and 
their descendants still call it, New Bngj 
This country of the best and boldest of seamen, 
and of the most moral and happy people in the 
world, is also the country of the tallest and ablest- 
bodied men in the world. And why : Because, 
from their very birth, they have an a bu ndance of 
good food ; not only of food, but of rich food. 
Even when the child is at the breast, a strip of 
beef-steak^ or something of that description, as big 
and as long as one's finger., is put into its hand. 
When a baby gets a thing in its hand, the fust 
thing it does is to poke some part of it into it s 
mouth. It cannot bite the meat, but its gums 
squeeze out the juice. When it has done with the 
breast, it eats meat constantly twice, if not thrice, 
a day. And this abundance of good food is the 
cause, to be sure, of the superior size and strength 
of the people of that country. 

2^(\. Nor is this, in any point of view, an unim- 
portant matter. A tall man is, whether as labourer, 
carpenter, bricklayer, soldier or sailor, or almost 
anything else, worth more than a short man : he can 
look over a higher thing; he can reach higher and 
wider; he can move on from place to place faster; 
or corn he takes a y rarth ; 



V.] TO A FATHER. 221 

in pitching he wants a shorter prong ; in making 
buildings, he does not so soon want a ladder or a 
scaffold ; in fighting he keeps his body farther from 
the point of his sword. To be sure, a man may be 
tall and iveak : but, this is the exception and not 
the rule: height and iveight and strength, in men, 
as in speechless animals, generally go together. 
Aye, and in enterprise and courage too, the powers 
of the body have a great deal to do. Doubtless 
there are, have been, and always will be, great 
numbers of small and enterprising and brave men ; 
but it is not in nature, that, generally speaking, those 
who are conscious of their inferiority in point of 
bodily strength, should possess the boldness of those 
who have a contrary description. 

277- To what but this difference in the size and 
strength of the opposing combatants are we to 
ascribe the ever-to-be-blushed~at events of our last 
war against the United States ! The hearts of our 
seamen and soldiers were as good as those of the 
Yankees : on both sides they had sprung from the 
same stock : on both sides equally well supplied 
with all the materials of war : if on either side, the 
superior skill was on ours : French, Dutch, Spa- 
niards, all had confessed our superior prowess : 
yet, when, with our whole undivided strength, and 
to that strength adding the flush and pride of vic- 
tory and conquest, crowned even in the capital of 
France ; when, with all these tremendous advan- 
tages, and with all the nations of the earth looking 
on, we came foot to foot and yard-arm to yard-arm 
with the Americans, the result was such as an 
English pen refuses to describe. What, then, was 
the great cause of this result, which filled us with 
shame, and the world with astonishment ? Not the 
Want of courage in our men. There were, indeed, 
some moral causes at work ; but the main cause was, 



cobhkij's advh [Letter 

the great superiority of size and of bodily strength 
on the part of the enemy's soldiers and sailor*. I 1 

was Sfj nuntij nun 0/1 each side; but it was men of B 
different size and strength ; and, on the side ui' the 
foe, men accustomed to daring enterprise from a con- 
sciousness of that strength* 

-7 s . Why are abstinence and fasting enjoined by 
the Catholic Church ? Why., to make men humble, 

mi r/\ and tame ; and they have this effect too: this 
is visible in whole nations as well as in individuals. 
So that good food, and plenty of it, is not m 
necessary to 4lie forming of a stout and able body 
than to the forming of an active and enterprising 
spirit. Poor food, short allowance, while they check 
the growth of the child's body, check also the 
daring of the mind ; and, therefore, the starving 
or pinching system ought to be avoided by all 
means. Children should eat often, and as much 
as they like at a time. They will, if at full heap, 
never take, of plain foody more than it is good for 
them to take. They may, indeed, be stuffed with 
cakes and sweet things till they be ill, and, indeed, 
until they bring on dangerous disorders : but, of 
meat plainly and well rooked, and of bread, they will 
never swallow the tenth part of an ounce more than 
it is necessary for them to swallow. Ripe fruit, or 
cooked fruit, if no siceetenintj take place, will ih 
hurt them ; but, when they once get a taste for 
sugary stuff, and to cram down loads of garden vi 
tables ; when ices, creams, tarts, raisins, almonds, 
all the endless pamperings come, the doctor must 
soon follow with his drugs. The blowing out of 
the bodies of children with tea, coffee, soup, or 
warm liquids of any kind, is very bad ; these have 
an effect precisely like that which is produced by 
feeding young rabbits, or pigs, or other young ani- 
mals upon watery vegetables : it makes them big- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 223 

bellied and bare-boned at the same time ; and it 
effectually prevents the frame from becoming strong. 
Children in health want no drink other than skim 
milk, or butter-milk, or whey; and, if none of those 
be at hand, water will do very well, provided they 
have plenty of good meat. Cheese and butter do 
very well for part of the day. Puddings and pies ; 
but always without sugar, which, say what people 
will about the wholesomeness of it, is not only of 
no use in the rearing of children, but injurious : it 
forces an appetite : like strong drink, it makes daily 
encroachments on the taste: it wheedles down that 
which the stomach does not want : it finally pro- 
duces illness : it is one of the curses of the country ; 
for it, by taking off the bitter of the tea and coffee, 
is the great cause of sending down into the stomach 
those quantities of warm water by which the body 
is debilitated and deformed, and the mind enfeebled. 
I am addressing myself to persons in the middle 
walk of life ; but no parent can be sure that his 
child will not be compelled to labour hard for its 
daily bread: and then, how vast is the difference 
between one who has been pampered with sweets, 
and one who has been reared on plain food and 
simple drink ! 

279. The next thing after good and plentiful and 
plain food is good air. This is not within the 
reach of every one ; but, to obtain it is worth great 
sacrifices in other respects. We know that there 
are smells which will cause instant death ; we know, 
that there are others which will cause death in a 
few years ; and, therefore, we know that it is the 
duty of parents to provide, if possible, against this 
danger to the health of their offspring. To be sure, 
when a man is so situated, that he cannot give his 
children sweet air without putting himself into a 
jail for debt : when, in short, he has the dire choice 



224 cobbltt's ad\J( [Letter 

nt sickly children, children with big heads, small 
limbs, and ricketty joints: or children sent to the 

poor-bouse : when this is his hard lot, lie must 
decide for the former sad alternative : but before 
he will convince me that this is his lot, he must 
prove to me, that he and his wife expend not a 
penny in the decoration of their persons ; that on 
his table, morning, noon, or night, nothing ever 
comes that is not the produce of English soil ; thai 
of his time not one hour is wasted in what is called 
pleasure ; that down his throat not one drop or 
morsel ever goes, unless necessary to sustain lite 
and health. How many scores and how many 
hundreds of men have I seen ; how many thousands 
could I go and point out, to-morrow, in London, 
the money expended on whose guzzlings in porter, 
grog and wine, would keep, and keep well, in the 
country, a considerable part of the year, a wife 
surrounded by healthy children, instead of being 
stewed up in some alley, or back room, with a 
parcel of poor creatures about her, whom she, 
though their fond mother, is almost ashamed to 
call hers ! Compared with the life of such a woman, 
that of the labourer, however poor, is paradise. 
Tell me not of the necessity of providing HUH 
for them, even if you waste not a farthing : you 
can provide, them with no money equal in value to 
health and straight limbs and good looks : these it 
is, if within your power, your bounden duly to pro- 
vide for them : as to providing them with money, 
you deceive yourself ; it is your own avarice, or 
vanity, that you arc seeking to gratify, and not to 
ensure the good of your children. Their most pre- 
cious possession is health and strength : and you 
have no fight to run the risk of depriving them of 
these for the sake of heaping together money to 
bestow on them : you have the desire to see them 



V.] TO A FATHER. 225 

rich : it is to gratify yourself that you act in such a 
case ; and you., however you may deceive yourself, 
are guilty of injustice towards them. You would 
be ashamed to see them ivithout fortune ; but not at 
all ashamed to see them without straight limbs, with- 
out colour in their cheeks, without strength, with- 
out activity, and with only half their due portion of 
reason. 

280. Besides sweet air, children want ewer else. 
Even when they are babies in arms, they want 
tossing and pulling about, and want talking and 
singing to. They should be put upon their feet by- 
slow degrees, according to the strength of their 
legs ; and this is a matter which a good mother 
will attend to with incessant care. If they appear 
to be likely to squint, she will, always when they 
wake up, and frequently in the day, take care to 
present some pleasing object right before, and 
never on the side of their face. If they appear, 
when they begin to talk, to indicate a propensity 
to stammer, she will stop them, repeat the word or 
words slowly herself, and get them to do the same. 
These precautions are amongst the most sacred of the 
duties of parents ; for, remember, the deformity is 
for life ; a thought which will fill every good parentis 
heart with solicitude. All swaddling and tight cover- 
ing are mischievous. They produce distortions of 
some sort or other. To let children creep and roll 
about till they get upon their legs of themselves 
is a very good way. I never saw a native American 
with crooked limbs or hump-back, and never heard 
any man say that he had seen one. And the reason 
is, doubtless, the loose dress in which children, from 
the moment of their birth, are kept, the good food 
that they always have, and the sweet air that they 
breathe in consequence of the absence of all dread of 
poverty on the part of the parents, 

l* 5 



cobbett's advice [Letter 

. As to bodily exercise, they Will, when thcv 
begin to get Abottt, take, it' you let them alone, just 

much of it as nature bids them* and no more. 
That is a pretty deal, indeed, it' they be in health : 
and, it is your duty, now, to provide for their taking 
of that exercise, when they begin to be what arc 
railed boys and ylrte, in B way that shall tend to 
give them the greatest degree of pleasure, accom- 
panied with the smallest risk of pain: in other 
words, to make their lives as pleasant as you postibty 
ran, I have always admired the sentiment of 
ROUSSEAU upon this subject. "The boy dies, 
w perhaps, at the age of ten or twelve. Of what 
u U8€ 3 then, all the restraints, all the privations, 
u all the pain, that you have inflicted upon hi in ! 
" He falls, and leaves your mind to brood over the 
u possibility of your having abridged a life so dear 
" to you." I do not recollect the very words ; 
but the passage made a deep impression upon my 
mind, just at the time, too, when I was about to 
become a father ; and 1 was resolved never to bring 
upon myself remorse from such a cause ; a re 
lution from which no importunities, coming from 
what quarter they might, ever induced me, in one 
single instance, or for one single moment, to depart* 
I was resolved to forego all the means of making 
money, all the means of living in any thing like 
fashion, all the means of obtaining fame or distinc- 
tion, to give up everything, to become a common 
labourer rather than make my children lead a life 
of restraint and rebuke; 1 could not be sure that 
my children would love me as they loved their own 
lives ; but I was, at anv rate, resolved to deserve 
such love at their hands; and, in possession of that, 
I felt that I could set calamity, of whatever descrip- 
tion, at defiance. 

282, Now, proceeding to relate what was, in this 



V.] TO A FATHER. 22? 

respect, my line of conduct, I am not pretending 
that every man, and particularly every man living 
in a town, can, in all respects, do as I did in the 
rearing up of children. But, in many respects, any 
man may, whatever may be his state of life. For 
I did not lead an idle life ; I had to work con- 
stantly for the means of living ; my occupation 
required unremitted attention ; I had nothing but 
my labour to rely on; and I had no friend, to 
whom, in case of need, I could fly for assistance : I 
always saw the possibility, and even the probability, 
of being totally ruined by the hand of power ; but 
happen what would, I was resolved, that, as long as 
I could cause them to do it, my children should lead 
happy lives ; and happy lives they did lead, if ever 
children did in this whole world. 

283. The first thing that I did, when the fourth 
child had come, was to get into the country, and so 
far as to render a going backward and forward to 
London, at short intervals, quite out of the question. 
Thus was health, the greatest of all things, provided 
for, as far as I was able to make the provision. 
Next, my being always at home was secured as far 
as possible ; always with them to set an example of 
early rising, sobriety, and application to something 
or other. Children, and especially boys, will have 
some out-of-doors pursuits ; and it was my duty to 
lead them to choose such pursuits as combined 
future utility with present innocence. Each his 
flower-bed, little garden, plantation of trees ; rabbits, 
dogs, asses, horses, pheasants and hares ; hoes, 
spades, whips, guns; always some object of lively 
interest, and as much earnestness and bustle about 
the various objects as if our living had solely de- 
pended upon them. I made every thing give way 
to the great object of making their lives happy and 
innocent. 1 did not know what they might be in 



COBBBTV'fl aij\ U B [Lei 

time ; di wliit might be my lol ; but I was n lolved 
not to be the cause of their being unhappy then^ lei 
what might become of as afterwards. I was, ;i ■ I 
am, of opinion, that it ia injurious to the mind lo 
press book-learning upon it at an early age: I always 
felt pain for poor little things, set up, before w coni- 
" pany/ J to repeat verses, or bits of plays, at six or 
eight years old. I have sometimes not known which 
way to look, when a mother (and, too often, a 
father), whom I could not but respect on account of 
her fondness for her child, has forced the feeblc- 
voicccl eighth wonder of the world, to stand with 
its little hand stretched out, spouting the soliloquy 
of Hamlet, or some such thing. 1 remember, on 
one occasion, a little pale-faced creature, only five 
years old, was brought in, after the feeding part of 
the dinner was over, first to take his regular half- 
glass of vintner's brewings, commonly called wine, 
and then to treat us to a display of his wonderful 
genius. The subject was a speech of a robust and 
bold youth, in a Scotch play, the title of which 1 
have forgotten, but the speech began with, k * My 
" name is Norval : on the Grampian hills my father 
u fed his flocks . . ." And this in a voice so weak 
and distressing, as to put me in mind of the plaintive 
squeaking of little pigs when the sow is lying on 
them. As wc were going home (one of my boys 
and I), he, after a silence of half a mile perhaps, 
rode up clo.^e to the side of my horse, and said, 
"Papa, where be the Grampian hills/" (€ Oh, w 
said I, " they arc in Scotland ; poor, barren, beg- 
u garly places, covered with heath and rushes, ten 
" times as barren as Shcrril 1 leath.'' u But/' said 
he, u how could that little boy's lather feed his flocks 
there, then ?•' 1 was ready to tumble off the horse 
with laughing:. 

284. I do not know any thing much more dis- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 229 

tressing to the spectators than exhibitions of this 
sort. Every one feels, not for the child, for it is 
insensible to the uneasiness it excites, but for the 
parents, whose amiable fondness displays itself in 
this ridiculous manner, Upon these occasions, no 
one knows what to say, or whither to direct his 
looks. The parents, and especially the fond mother, 
looks sharply round for the so-evidently merited 
applause, as an actor of the name of Munden, 
whom I recollect thirty years ago, used, when he 
had treated us to a witty shrug of his shoulders, or 
twist of his chin, to turn his face up to the gallery 
for the clap. If I had to declare on my oath which 
have been the most disagreeable moments of ray 
life, I verily believe, that, after due consideration, I 
should fix upon those, in which parents, whom I 
have respected, have made me endure exhibitions 
like these ; for, this is your choice, to be insincere, 
or to give offence. 

285. And, as towards the child, it is to be unjust, 
thus to teach it to set a high value on trifling, not 
to say mischievous, attainments ; to make it, whe- 
ther it be in its natural disposition or not, vain and 
conceited. The plaudits which it receives, in such 
cases, puffs it up in its own thoughts, sends it out 
into the world stuffed with pride and insolence, 
which must and will be extracted out of it by one 
means or another ; and none but those who have had 
to endure the drawing of firmly-fixed teeth, can, I 
take it, J c have an adequate idea of the painfulness of 
this operation. Now, parents have no right thus to 
indulge their own feelings at the risk of the happi- 
ness of their children. 

286. The great matter is, however, the spoiling of 
the mind by forcing on it thoughts which it is not 
fit to receive. We know well, we daily see, that in 
men, as well as in other animals, the body is ren- 



i oi;i;i;tt\ aovk [Li 

dered comparatively kq&U and feeble by being hea- 
vily loaded, 01 hard worked, before it arrive 
and strength proportioned to BUCh load and such 

work. It IS just 80 with the mind : ihc auemp' 
put old heads upon young should* rs is just as un- 
rcasonable as it would be to expect a coh 
months old to be able to carry a man. The mind, 
as well as the body, rccpiircs time to come to 
Strength : and the way to have it possess, at last, its 
natural strength, is not to attempt to load it too 
soon; and to favour it in its progress by ^ i \ in lc to 
the body good and plentiful food, sweet air, and 
abundant exercise, accompanied with as little discon- 
tent or uneasiness as possible. It is universally 
known, that ailments of the body are, in many cases, 
sufficient to destroy the mind, and to debilitate it in 
innumerable instances. It is equally well known, 
that the torments of the mind are, in many cases, 
sufficient to destroy the body. This, then, being so 
well known, is it not the first duty of a father to se- 
cure to his chilrcn, if possible, sound and 
bodies J Lord BACON says, tha rand mind 

tt in a sound body is the greatest of God's Uefl 
To see his children possess these, therefore, ought to 
be the first object with every father; an object which 
I cannot too often endeavour to fix in his mind. 
287- I am to speak presently of that sort of A 
which is derived from books, and which is 
matter by no means to be neglected, or to be thought 
little of. seeing that it is the road, not only to fame, 
but to the means of doing [ >od to one's neigb- 

bours and to one's country, and, thereby, of adding 
to those pleasant feelings which are, in other words, 
our happiness. But, notwithstanding this, 1 must 
here insist, and endeavour to impress my opinion 
upon the mind of every lather, that his children 
hafpmess ought to be his first object; that book- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 231 

learning, if it tend to militate against this, ought to 
be disregarded ; and that, as to money, as to fortune, 
as to rank and title, that father who can, in the des- 
tination of his children, think of them more than of 
the happiness of those children, is, if he be of sane 
mind, a great criminal. Who is there, having lived 
to the age of thirty, or even twenty, years, and hav- 
ing the ordinary capacity for observation; who is 
there, being of this description, who must not be con- 
vinced of the inadequacy of riches and what are called 
honours to insure happiness ? Who, amongst all the 
classes of men, experience, on an average, so little of 
real pleasure, and so much of real pain as the rich 
and the lofty ? Pope gives us, as the materials for 
happiness, " health, peace, and competence" Aye, 
but what is peace, and what is competence? If by 
peace, he mean that tranquillity of mind which inno- 
cence and good deeds produce, he is right and clear 
so far ; for we all know that, without health, which 
has a well-known positive meaning, there can be no 
happiness. But competence is a word of unfixed 
meaning. It may, with some, mean enough to eat, 
drink, wear and be lodged and warmed with; but 
with others, it may include horses, carriages, and 
footmen laced over from top to toe. So that, here, 
we have no guide ; no standard ; and, indeed, there 
can be none. But as every sensible father must 
know that the possession of riches do not, never did, 
and never can, afford even a chance of additional 
happiness, it is his duty to inculcate in the minds of 
his children to make no sacrifice of principle, of 
moral obligation of any sort, in order to obtain 
riches, or distinction ; and it is a duty still more im- 
perative on him, not to expose them to the risk of 
loss of health, or diminution of strength, for purposes 
which have, either directly, or indirectly, the acquir- 
ing of riches in view, whether for himself or for them f 



( obbi i i i .\n\ i< [Letter 

288- With these principle* immoveably implanted 
in my mind, I became the father of a family, and on 
tlii i >r principles I have reared that family. Being 
myself fond of book-learning^ and knowing well its 
powers, I naturally wished them to possess it too ; 

hut never did I impose if upon any one of them. My 
first duly was to make them healthy and si >'0/<f/, if i 
could, and to give them as inueh enjoyment of lift 
possible. Born and bred ii}) in the sweet air myself, 
1 was resolved that they should be bred up in it t 
Enjoying rural scenes and sports, as I had done, 
when a boy, as much as any one that ever was born, 
I was resolved that they should have the same en- 
joyments tendered to them. When I Mas a very 
little boy, I was, in the barley-sowing season, going 
along by the side of a field, near Wayeuly Abbey; 
the primroses and blue-bells bespangling the banks 
on both sides of me; a thousand linnets singing in a 
spreading oak over my head; while the jingle of the 
traces and the whistling of the ploughboys saluted 
my car from over the hedge ; and, as it were to 
snatch me from the enchantment, the hounds, at that 
instant, having started a hare in the hanger on the 
other side of the field, came up scampering over it in 
full cry, taking me after them many a mile. I was 
not more than eight years old ; but this particular 
scene lias presented itself to my mind many times 
every year from that day to this. I always enjoy 
it over again ; and I was resolved to give, if possible, 
the same enjoyments to my children. 

289, Men's circumstances arc so various; there is 
such a great variety in their situations in life, their 
business, the extent of their pecuniary means, the 
local state in which they are placed, their internal re- 
sources ; the variety in all these respects is so great, 
that, as applicable to every family, it would be impos- 
sible to lay down any set of rules, or maxims, touch- 



V.] TO A FATHER. 233 

ing every matter relating to the management and 
rearing up of children. In giving an account, there- 
fore, of my own conduct, in this respect, I am not to 
be understood as supposing, that every father can, or 
ought to attempt to do the same ; but while it will be 
seen, that there are many, and these the most import- 
ant parts of that conduct, that all fathers may imitate, 
if they choose, there is no part of it which thousands 
and thousands of fathers might not adopt and 
pursue, and adhere to, to the very letter. 

290. I effected every thing without scolding, and 
even without command. My children are a family of 
scholars, each sex its appropriate species of learning; 
and, I could safely take my oath, that I never ordered 
a child of mine, son or daughter, to look into a book, 
in my life. My two eldest sons, when about 
eight years old, were, for the sake of their health, 
placed for a very short time, at a Clergyman's at 
Micheldever, and my eldest daughter, a little 
older, at a school a few miles from Botley, to avoid 
taking them to London in the winter. But, with 
these exceptions, never had they, while children, 
teacher of any description ; and I never, and nobody else 
ever, taught any one of them to read, write, or any 
thing else, except in conversation ; and, yet, no man 
was ever more anxious to be the father of a family of 
clever and learned persons. 

291. I accomplished my purpose indirectly. The 
first thing of all was health, which was secured by 
the deeply-interesting and never-ending sports of the 
field and pleasures of the garden. Luckily these 
things were treated of in books and pictures of end- 
less variety ; so that, on wet days, in long evenings, 
these came into play. A large, strong table, in the 
middle of the room, their mother sitting at her work, 
used to be surrounded with them, the baby, if big 
enough, set up in a high chair. Here were ink- 



COBBSTT's Ai)Vi< [Letter 

slaiuU. pen>, pencils, India-rubber, and paper, all in 

abundance, and every one scrabbled about as be oi 

I. There were prints of animals of all 

books treating of them; oth< ting of 

of flowers, of husbandry, of bunti 

COUrsing, shootings fishing, planting, and, in short, 
of every thing with regard to which u:c had 
thing to do* One would be trying to imitate a bit of 
my writing, another drawing the pictui 
our dogs or horses, a third poking over B 
Quadruped*) and picking out what he said about 
them ; but our book of never-failing resource was the 

French Maison RusTiQUE,or Farm-housje, which, 
it is said, was the book that first tempted DuQUM- 
NOIS (I think that was the name), the famous physi- 
cian, in the reign of Louis XIV., to lca.ru to r< 
Mere are all the four-legged animals, from the horse 
down to the mouse, portraits and all; all the bird*, 
reptiles, insects; all the modes of rearing, managing, 
and using the tame ones ; all the modes of tak 
the wild ones, and of destroying those that are mis- 
chievous ; all the various traps, springs, nets ; all the 
implements of husbandry and gardening; all the 
labours of the field and the garden exhibited, as well 
as the rest, in plates; and, there was I, in my leisure 
moments, to join this inquisitive group, to read the 
French^ and tell them what it meaned in Engli 
when the picture did not sufficiently explain itself. 1 
never have been without a copy of this book for 
forty years, except during the time thai 1 was fleeing 
from the dungeons of Castli: ueaoh and Sid- 
MOUTH, in 1SL7; and, when 1 got to Long Island, 
the first book I bought was another Maison Rl 
TIQUB. 

292, What need had we of schools ? What need 
o[ teachers? What need of scolding and force, to 
induce children to read, write, and love books? 



V.] TO A FATHER. 235 



a 



What need of cards, dice, or of any games, to "kill 
time ;" but, in fact, to implant in the infant heart 
a love of gaming, one of the most destructive of all 
human vices? We did not want to " kill time;" we 
were always busy, wet weather or dry weather, winter 
or summer. There was no force in any case ; no 
command; no authority; none of these was ever 
wanted. To teach the children the habit of early 
rising was a great object; and every one knows how 
young people cling to their beds, and how loth they 
are to go to those beds. This was a capital matter; 
because here were industry and health both at stake. 
Yet, I avoided command even here ; and merely 
offered a reward. The child that was down stairs 
first, was called the Lark for that day ; and, further, 
sat at my right hand at dinner. They soon dis- 
covered, that to rise early, they must go to bed early ; 
and thus was this most important object secured, 
with regard to girls as well as boys. Nothing is 
more inconvenient, and, indeed, more disgusting, 
than to have to do with girls, or young women, who 
lounge in bed: "A little more sleep, a little more 
" slumber, a little more folding of the hands to 
" sleep." Solomon knew them well : he had, I 
dare say, seen the breakfast cooling, carriages and 
horses and servants waiting, the sun coming burning 
on, the day wasting, the night growing dark too 
early, appointments broken, and the objects of 
journeys defeated; and all this from the lolloping in 
bed of persons who ought to have risen with the 
sun. No beauty, no modesty, no accomplishments, 
are a compensation for the effects of laziness in 
women ; and, of all the proofs of laziness, none 
is so unequivocal as that of lying late in bed. Love 
makes men overlook this vice (for it is a vice), for 
awhile ; but, this does not last for life. Besides, 
health demands early rising : the management of a 



23(3 ( OBBBTrVfl ADVICE [Letter 

house imperiously demands it ; but health, that most 
precious possession, without which there is nothing 
else worth possessing, demands it too. The morning 

air is the most wholesome and strengthening : even 
in crowded cities, men might do pretty well with the 
aid of the morning air; but, how are they to rise 

early, if they go to bed late? 

293. But, to do the things I did, you must love 

home yourself; to rear up children in this manner, 
you must live with I hem; you must make them, too, 
fc( I by your conduct, that you prefer this to any 
other mode of passing your time. All men cannot 
lead this sort of life, but many may; and all much 
more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was 
chiefly carried on at home ; but, Iliad always enough 
to do; I never spent an idle week, or even day, in 
my whole life. Yet I found time to talk with them, 
to walk, or ride, about v:ith them: and when forced 
to go from home, always took one or more with me. 
You must be good-tempered too with them ; they 
must like your company better than any other per- 
sons ; they must not wish you away, not fear your 
coming back, not look upon your departure as a 
holiday* When my business kept me away from the 
scrabbling-tdfoXt) a petition often came, that 1 would 
go and talk with the group, and the bearer generally 
was the youngest, being the most likely to succeed. 
When I went from home, all followed me to the 
outer-gate, and looked after me, till the carriage, or 
horse, was out of sight. At the time appointed for 
my return, all were prepared to meet me; and if it 
were late at night, they sat up as long [as they were 
able to keep their eyes open. This love of parents, 
and this constant pleasure at home, made them not 
even think of seeking pleasure abroad; and they, 
thus, were kept from vicious playmates and early 
corruption. 



V.] TO A FATHER. 237 

294. This is the age, too, to teach children to be 
trust -worthy, and to be merciful and humane. We 
lived in a garden of about two acres, partly kitchen- 
garden with walls, partly shrubbery and trees, and 
partly grass. There were the peaches, as tempting 
as any that ever grew, and yet as safe from fingers 
as if no child were ever in the' garden. It was not 
necessary to forbid. The blackbirds, the thrushes, 
the white-throats, and even that very shy bird the 
goldfinch, had their nests and bred up their young- 
ones, in great abundance, all about this little spot, 
constantly the play-place of six children ; and one 
of the latter had its nest, and brought up its young- 
ones, in a raspberry bush, within two yards of a 
walk, and at the time that w r e were gathering the 
ripe raspberries. We give dogs, and justly, great 
credit for sagacity and memory ; but the following 
two most curious instances, which I should not 
venture to state, if there were not so many witnesses 
to the facts, in my neighbours at Botley, as well as 
in my own family, will show, that birds are not, in 
this respect, inferior to the canine race. All country 
people know that the skylark is a very shy bird ; 
that its abode is the open fields : that it settles on 
the ground only ; that it seeks safety in the wide- 
ness of space; that it avoids enclosures, and is 
never seen in gardens. A part of our ground was a 
grass-plat of about forty rods, or a quarter of an 
acre, which, one year, was left to be mowed for hay, 
A pair of larks, coming out of the fields into the 
middle of a pretty populous village, chose to make 
their nest in the middle of this little spot, and at 
not more than about thirty-five yards from one of 
the doors of the house, in which there were about 
twelve persons living, and six of those children, 
who had constant access to all parts of the ground. 
There we ^saw the cock rising up and singing, then 



238 coiwf.tVs advice [Loiter 

taking his turn upon the eggs ; and by-and-bv, we 
observed him cease to ring, and saw- them both 
constantly engaged in hinging food to the you,: 

No unintelligible hint to fathers and mothers of the 4 
human race, who have, before marriage, taken de- 
light in music. But the time came for mowing the 
grass ! I waited a good many days for the brood to 
get away ; but, at; last, I determined on the day; and 
if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of gr 
Standing round them. In order not to keep them 
in dread longer than necessary, 1 brought three able 
mowers, who would cut the whole in about: an hour; 
and as the plat was nearly circular, set them to 
mow round, beginning at the outside. And now 
for sagacity indeed ! r l ne moment the men began 
to whet their scythes, the two old larks began 
tl utter over the nest, and to make a great clamour. 
When the men began to mow, they Hew round and 
round, stooping so low, when near the men. 
almost to touch their bodies, making a ureal chat- 
tering at the same time ; but before the men had 
round with the second swarth, they Hew to the 
nest, and away they went, young ones and all, 
across the river, at the foot of the ground, and I 
tied in the long grass in my neighbour's orchard. 

21)5. The other instance relates to a IIoisk-m \k- 
TBN. It is well known that these birds build their 
Is under the eaves of inhabited houses, and 
sometimes under these of door-porchea \ but 
had one that built its nest in //< | and upon 

the top Of a common do.>r-ea>c, the door of which 
Opened into a room out of the main pi nlo the 

house. Perceiving the marten had begun to build its 
nest here, we kept, the front-door open in the day- 
time: but were obliged to fasten it at night. It w 
on, had poung ones, and the young ones 

I used to open the door in the morning enrly, and 



V.] TO A FATHER. 239 

then tli® birds carried on their affairs till night. The 
next year the marten came again, and had another 
brood in the same place. It found its old nest ; and 
having repaired it, and put it in order, went on again 
in the former way ; and it would, I dare say, have 
continued to come to the end of its life, if we had 
remained there so long, notwithstanding there were 
six healthy children in the house, making just as 
much noise as they pleased. 

296. Now, what sagacity in these birds, to dis- 
cover that those were places of safety! And how 
happy must it have made us, the parents, to be sure 
that our children had thus deeply imbibed habits the 
contrary of cruelty ! For, be it engraven on your 
heart, young man, that whatever appearances may 
say to the contrary, cruelty is always accompanied 
with cowardice, and also with perfidy, when that is 
called for by the circumstances of the case ; and that 
habitual acts of cruelty to other creatures, will, nine 
times out of ten, produce, when the power is pos- 
sessed, cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage of 
horses, and particularly asses, is a grave and a just 
charge against this nation. No other nation on earth 
is guilty of it to the same extent. Not only by 
blows, but by privation, are we cruel towards these 
useful, docile, and patient creatures ; and especially 
towards the last, which is the most docile and patient 
and laborious of the two, while the food that satisfies 
it is of the coarsest and least costly kind, and in 
quantity so small ! In the habitual ill-treatment of 
this animal, which, in addition to all its labours, has 
the milk taken from its young ones to administer a 
remedy for our ailments, there is something that 
bespeaks ingratitude hardly to be described. In a 
Register that I wrote from Long Island, I said, 
that amongst all the things of which I had been 
bereft, I regretted no one so much as a very dimi- 



240 cohhktt's adyicf. [Letter 

nutivemare, on which my children had all, in Succes- 
sion, learnt to ride. She was become I'.sch.ss for 
them* and, indeed, for any oilier purpose; but the 
recollection of her was so entwined with so many 
past circumstances; which; at that distance; my mind 
conjured up, that I really was very uneasy, lest she 
should fall into cruel hands. By good luck, she was, 
after awhile; turned out on the wide world to shift 
for herself ; and when we got back; and had a place 
for her to stand in, from her native forest we brought 
her to Kensington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, 
about twenty-six years old, and I dare say, as tat B 
a mole. Now, not only have I no moral right 
(considering my ability to pay for keep) to deprive 
her of life; but it would be unjust and ungrcdefid, in 
me to withhold from her sufficient food and lodging 
to make life as pleasant as possible while that Life 
last. 

297« In the meanwhile the book-learning crept in 
of its own accord, by imperceptible degrees. Chil- 
dren naturally want to be like their parents, and to 
do what they do : the boys following their father, 
and the girls their mother ; and as I was always 
writing or reading, mine naturally desired to do 
something in the same way. But, at the same time, 
they heard no talk from fools or drinkers; saw me 
with no idle, gabbling, empty companions; saw no 
vain and affected coxcombs, and no tawdry and ex- 
travagant women ; saw no nasty gormandising; and 
heard no gabble about play-houses and romances and 
the other nonsense that tit boystobe lobby-loungers, 
and girls to be the ruin of industrious and frugal 
young men. 

298, AVe wanted no stimulants of this sort to 
keep up our Spirits : our various pleasing pursuits 
Were quite sufficient for that ; and the book-learn 

came amongst the res( of the pleasures, to which it 



V.] TO A FATHER. 241 

was, in some sort, necessary. I remember that, one 
year, I raised a prodigious crop of fine melons, under 
hand-glasses ; and I learned how to do it from a 
gardening book ; or, at least, that book was necessary 
to remind me of the details. Having passed part of 
an evening in talking to the boys about getting 
this crop, " Come/' said I, " now, let us read the 
book. 3 ' Then the book came forth, and to work we 
went, following very strictly the precepts of the 
book. I read the thing but once, but the eldest 
boy read it, perhaps, twenty times over ; and ex- 
plained all about the matter to the others. Why 
here was a motive ! Then he had to tell the garden- 
labourer what to do to the melons. Now, I will en- 
gage, that more was really learned by this single 
lesson, than would have been learned by spending, 
at this son's age, a year at school ; and he happy 
and delighted all the while. When any dispute arose 
amongst them about hunting or shooting, or any 
other of their pursuits, they, by degrees, found out 
the way of settling it by reference to some book ; 
and when any difficulty occurred as to the meaning, 
they referred to me, who,, if at home, always instantly 
attended to them, in these matters. 

299. They began writing by taking words out of 
printed books ; finding out which letter was which, 
by asking me, or asking those who knew the letters 
one from another; and by imitating bits of my 
writing, it is surprising how soon they began to 
write a hand like mine, very small, very faint- 
stroked, and nearly plain as print. The first use 
that any one of them made of the pen, was to write 
to me, though in the same house with them. They 
began doing this in mere scratches, before they 
knew how to make any one letter ; and as I was al- 
ways folding up letters and directing them, so were 
they ; and they were sure to receive a prompt answer 

M 



249 cobb] • [Letter 

with most endamaging compliments* All the med« 
dlingt and teamnga of friends, and, what 

serious, the pressing prayers of their anxious mo* 

ilier, about Bending them to school, l withstood 
without the Blighted effect on my resolution. A 
friends, preferring my own judgment to theirs, I 

did not care much ; but an expression of anxi< 
implying a doubt of the soundness of my own ji 

incut, coming, perhaps, twenty times a dav r, 
her whose care they were as well as mine, was not a 
matter to smile at, and very great trouble it did give 
me. My answer at last was, as to the boys, I want 
them to be like me; and as to the girls, In wh 
hands ean they be so safe as in yours t Therefore 
my resolution is taken : go to school they shall n<U. 

300. Nothing is much more annoying than the 
intermeddling of friends, in a case like this. The 
wife appeals to them, and " good Lrceding" thai 
to say, nonsi-nse, is sure to put them on her wide* 
Then, they, particularly the women, when desi 
the surprising progress made by their otcit sons at 
school, used, it' one of mine were present, to turn 
to him, and ask to what school he went, and what 
he was learning ? I leave any one to judge of 
opinion of her ; and whether he would like her the 
better for that ! u Bless me, so tall, and not 
" nny thing yet f* " Oh yes, he has/' I used to - 
c: he has learned to ride, and hunt, and shoot, and 
" fish, and look after cattle and sheep, and to work 
u in the garden, and to feed his dogs, and to go 
f < from village to village in the dark/' This v 
the way I used to manage with troublesome c 
tomera of this sort. And how glad the children 
used to be when they got clear of such eritich 
people! And how grateful they frit to me for the 
protection which they saw that I gave them against 
thai in-- of restraint; of which other peopl 



V.] i TO A FATHER. 243 

complained ! Go whither they might, they found no 
place so pleasant as home, and no soul that came 
near them affording them so many means of gratifi- 
cation as they received from me. 

301. In this happy state we lived, until the year 
1810, when the government laid its merciless fangs 
upon me, dragged from me these delights, and 
crammed me into a jail amongst felons ; of which I 
shall have to speak more fully, when, in the last 
Number, I come to speak of the duties of the 
Citizen. This added to the difficulties of my task 
of teaching ; for now I was snatched away from the 
only scene in which it could, as I thought, properly 
be executed. But even these difficulties were got 
over. The blow was, to be sure, a terrible one ; 
and, oh God ! how was it felt by these poor children ! 
It was in the month of July when the horrible sen- 
tence was passed upon me. My wife, having left 
her children in the care of her good and affectionate 
sister, was in London, waiting to know the doom of 
her, husband. When the news arrived at Botley, 
the three boys, one eleven, another nine, and the 
other seven, years old, were hoeing cabbages in that 
garden which had been the source of so much de- 
light. When the account of the savage sentence 
was brought to them, the youngest could not, for 
some time, be made to understand what a, jail was ; 
and, when he did, he, all in a tremor, exclaimed, 
u Now Pm sure, William, that Papa is not in a 
cc place like that ! ^ The other, in order to disguise 
his tears and smother his sobs, fell to work with the 
hoe, and chopped about like a blind person. This 
account, when it reached me, affected me more, 
filled me with deeper resentment, than any other 
circumstance. And, oh ! how I despise the wretches 
who talk of my vindictiveness ; of my exultation at 
the confusion of those who inflicted those sufferings ! 

M 2 



244 cobbei i 'a \T)VTn; [Letter 

I few I despise the base creatures, the crawling sla\ 
the callous and cowardly hypocrites, who affect to be 
"shocked?' (tender souls!) at my expressions of joy, 

and at the death of GlBBS, ElLENBOROUGH, PkR- 

ceval, Liverpool, Canning, and the rest ofthe 
tribe that I have already seen out, and at the fetal 
workings of that system, for endeavouring to check 
which 1 was thus punished ! Mow I despise th( 
wretches, and how I, above all things, enjoy their ruin, 
and anticipate their utter beggary! What! 1 am 
to forgive, am I, injuries like this ; and that, too, 
without any atonement ? Oh, no ! I have not 
so read the Holy Scriptures; I have not, from 
them, learned that I am not to rejoice at the fall 
of unjust foes ; and it makes a part of my happi- 
ness to be able to tell millions of men that I do thus 
rejoice, and that I have the means of calling on so 
many just and merciful men to rejoice along 
with me. 

302. Now, then, the book-learning was / 
upon us. I had a farm in hand. It was necessary 
that I should be constantly informed of what was 
doing. 1 gave all the orders, whether as to pur- 
chases, sales, ploughing, sowing, breeding; in short. 
with regard to every thing, and the things were end- 
less in number and variety, and always full of in- 
terest. My eldest son and daughter could now 
write well and fast. One or the other of them was 
always at Botlev ; and I had with me (having hired 
the best part of the keeper's house) one or two, 
besides either this brother or sister; the mother 
coming up to town about once in two or three 
months, leaving the house and children in the care 
of her sister. We had a HAMPER, with a lock and 
two keys, which came up once a week, or oftener, 
bringing me fruit and all sorts of country fare, for 
the carriage of which, cost free, 1 was indebted to 



V.] TO A FATHER. 245 

as good a man as ever God created, the late Mr. 
George Rogers, of Southampton, who,, in the 
prime of life, died deeply lamented by thousands, 
but by none more deeply than by me and my 
family, who have to thank him, and the whole of 
his excellent family, for benefits and marks of kind- 
ness without number. 

303. This hamper, which was always, at both 
ends of the line, looked for with the most lively 
feelings, became our school. It brought me a jour- 
nal of labours, proceedings, and occurrences, written 
on paper of shape and size uniform, and so con- 
trived, as to margins, as to admit of binding. The 
journal used, when my son was the writer, to be 
interspersed with drawings of our dogs, colts or 
any thing that he wanted me to have a correct idea 
of. The hamper brought me plants, bulbs, and the 
like, that I might see the size of them ; and always 
every one sent his or her most beautiful jlowers ; the 
earliest violets, and primroses, and cowslips, and 
blue-bells ; the earliest twigs of trees; and, in short, 
every thing that they thought calculated to delight 
me. The moment the hamper arrived, I, casting 
aside every thing else, set to work to answ r er every 
question, to give new directions, and to add any- 
thing likely to give pleasure at Botley. Every 
hamper brought one " letter," as they called it, if 
not more, from every child ; and to every letter I 
wrote an answer, sealed up and sent to the party, 
being sure that that was the way to produce other 
and better letters ; for, though they could not read 
what I wrote, and though their own consisted at 
first of mere scratches, and afterwards, for awhile, of 
a few words written down for them to imitate, I 
always thanked them for their "pretty letter;" 
and never expressed any wish to see them ivrite 
better; but took care to write in a very neat and 



2 16 COBfcfc i i ADVfl [Letter 

plain band Myself, and to do up toy letter in a ft 
ne&t manner. 

304. Th u.., while the ferocious tigers though! I 
doomed to incessant mortification, and 1 

that must Extinguish my mental powers, I found in 

my children, and in their spotless and com • 
and most affectionate mother, delights to which 

the callous hearts of those tigers were 
* Heaven first Caught letters for some wretch's aid." 
How often did this line of Pom: occur to inc when 
I opened the little spUddlitog M letters" from Both 
This correspondence occupied a good part of my 
time : I had all the children with me, turn and turn 
about; and, in order to give the boys exercise, and 
to give the two eldest an opportunity of beginm 
to learn French, I used, for a part of the two ye; 
to send them a few hours in the day to an Anm:, 
who lived in Castle-street, Ilolborn. All this was 
a great relaxation to my mind ; and, when I had to 
return to my literary labours, I returned fresh and 
cheerful, full of vigour, and fell of hope, of finally 
seeing my unjust and merciless foes at my feet, and 
that, too, Without caring a straw on whom their fall 
might bring calamity, so that my own family were 
safe ; because, say what any one might, the ( 
hitpl taken at a whole, had suffered this tiling to 
done unto ns. 

305. The paying Off the work-people, the keeping 
of the accounts, the referring to books, the writing 
and reading of letters; this everlasting mixture of 
amusement with book-learning, made me, almost to 
my own surprise, find, at the end of two years, that 
I had a parcel of scholars growing up about me ; 
and, long before the end of the time, I had ditti 
mumj llcfjislcrs to my two eldest children. Then, 
there was Copying out of books, which taught erpell- 
ihg correctly. The calculations about the farming 



V.] TO A FATHER. 24^ 

affairs forced arithmetic upon us : the use, the ne- 
cessity,' of the thing, led to the study. By-and-by, 
we had to look into the laws to know what to do 
about the highways, about the game, about the poor, 
and all rural and parochial affairs. I was, indeed, 
by the fangs of government, defeated in my fondly- 
cherished project of making my sons farmers on 
their own land, and keeping them from all tempta- 
tion to seek vicious and enervating enjoyments ; but 
those fangs, merciless as they had been, had not 
been able to prevent me from laying in for their 
lives a store of useful information, habits of indus- 
try, care, sobriety, and a taste for innocent, health- 
ful^ and manly pleasures : the fangs had made me 
and them pennyless ; but, they had not been able to 
take from us our health or our mental possessions ; 
and these were ready for application as circum- 
stances might ordain. 

306. After the age that I have now been speak- 
ing of, fourteen, I suppose every one became a reader 
and writer according to fancy. As to hooks, with 
the exception of the Poets, I never bought, in my 
whole life, any one that I did not want for some 
purpose of utility, and rf practical utility too. I 
have two or three times had the whole collection 
snatched away from me; and have begun again to 
get them together as they were wanted. Go and 
kick an Ant's nest about, and you will see the little 
laborious, courageous creatures instantly set to work 
to get it together again ; and if you do this ten times 
over, ten times over they will do the same. Here is 
the sort of stuff that men must be made of to op- 
pose, with success, those who, by whatever means, 
get possession of great and mischievous power. 

307. Now, I am aware, that that which I* did, 
cannot be done by every one of hundreds of thou- 
sands of fathers, each of whom loves his children 



248 COBBE ii a ADVICE [Letter 

with all his soul : 1 am aware that the attorney, the 

surgeon, the physician, the trader, and even the 
former, cannot, generally speaking, do what I did. 
and that they must, in most cases, send their 
to >chool, it" it be necessary for them to have book- 
learning. But while I say this, I know, that there 
arc many things, which 1 did, which many lathers 
might do, and which, nevertheless, they do I 
It is in the power of ( veryfattu r to live at home with 
his family s when not compelled by bush by 

public duty, to be absent : it is in his power to set 
an example of industry and sobriety and frugality, and 
to prevent a taste for gaming, dissipation, extrava- 
gance, from getting root in the minds of his children : 
it is in his power to continue to make his children 
hearers, when he is reproving servants for idlem 
or commending them for industry and care : it is in 
his power to keep all dissolute and idly-talking com- 
panions from his house : it is in his power to teacli 
them, by his uniform example, justice and mercy 
towards the inferior animals : it is in his power to 
do many other things, and something in the way of 
book-learning too, however busy his life may be. It 
is completely within his power to teach them early 
rising and early going to bed; and, if many a man, 
who says that he has not time to teach his children 
were to sit down, in sincerity, with a pen and a bit 
of paper, and put down all the minutes, which he, in 
every twenty-four hours, wastes over the bottle, or 
over cheese and oranges and raisins and fter 

he has dined : how many lie lounges away, either at 
the eoftec-housc or at home, over the useless part of 
newspapers ; how many he spends in waiting for the 
coming and the managing of the tea-table ; how manv 
he passes by candle-light, wearied of his exists 
when he might be in bed: how many he passes in 
the morning in bed, while the sun and dew shine and 






V.] TO A FATHER* 249 

sparkle for him in vain : if he were to put all these 
together, and were to add those which he passes in 
the reading of books for his mere personal amusement, 
and without the smallest chance of acquiring from 
them any useful practical knowledge : if he were to 
sum up the whole of these, and add to them the 
time worse than wasted in the contemptible work of 
dressing off his person, he would be frightened at 
the result : would send for his boys from school ; and 
if greater book-learning than he possessed were ne- 
cessary, he would choose for the purpose some man 
of ability, and see the teaching carried on under his 
own roof, with safety as to morals, and with the best 
chance as to health. 

308. If after all, however, a school must be re- 
sorted to, let it, if in your power, be as little popu- 
lous as possible. As " evil communications corrupt 
good manners/' so the more numerous the assem- 
blage, and the more extensive the communication, 
the greater the chance of corruption. Jails, barracks, 
factories, do not corrupt by their ivalls, but by their 
condensed numbers. Populous cities corrupt from 
the same cause ; and it is, because it must be, the 
same with regard to schools, out of which children 
come not what they were when they went in. The 
master is, in some sort, their enemy ; he is their 
overlooker ; he is a spy upon them ; his authority is 
maintained by his absolute power of punishment; 
the parent commits them to that power ; to be taught 
is to be held in restraint ; and, as the sparks fly 
upwards, the teaching and the restraint will not be 
divided in the estimation of the boy. Besides all 
this, there is the great disadvantage of tardiness in 
arriving at years of discretion. If boys live only 
with boys, their ideas will continue to be boyish ; if 
they see and hear and converse with nobody but 
boys, how are they to have the thoughts and the 

m 5 



2&0 coBBETT^a \u\ k i. [Letter 

character ol men . It is, 6/ fast, only by heating 
men talk and seeing men act, that they learn to talk 
and act like men; and, therefore, to confine them to 

tlic society of boys, is to retard their arrival at the 
years of discretion 5 and in ease of adverse circum- 
stances in the pecuniary way, where, in all the crea- 
tion, is tliere so helpless a mortal as a boy who 
lias always been at school! But, if, as 1 said Defo 
a school there must he, let the c .lion be 

small as possible ; and, do not expect too much from 
the master ; for, if it be irksome to you to teach your 
own sons, what must that teaching be to him : If 
he have great numbers, he must delegate his an 
thority ; and, like all other delegated authority, it will 
cither be abused or neglected. 

'.}()[). With regard to girls, one would think that 
Mothers would want no argument to make them 
shudder at the thought of committing the 1 
their daughters to other hands than their own. If 
fortune have so favoured them as to make them ra- 
tionallv desirous that their daughters should have 
more of what are called accomplishments than they 
themselves luuc, it has also favoured them with the 
means of having teachers under their own eve. If 
it have not favoured them so highly as this (and it 
seldom has in the middle rank of life), what tint \ 
sacred as that imposed on a mother to be the teacher 
of her daughters ! And is she, from love of case or 
of pleasure or of any thing else, to neglect this duty; 
is she to commit her daughters to the care of per- 
sons, wiih whose manners and morals it is impossible 
for her to be thoroughly acquainted ; is she to send 
them into the promiscuous society of girls, who 
belong to nobody knows whom, and come from no- 
body knows whither, and some of whom, for aught 
she can know to the contrary, may have been cor- 
rupted before, and sent thither to be hidden from 



V.] TO A FATHER* 251 

their former circle ; is she to send her daughters to 
be shut up within walls, the bare sight of which 
awaken the idea of intrigue and invite to seduction 
and surrender ; is she to leave the health of her 
daughters to chance, to shut them up with a motley 
bevy of strangers, some of whom, as is frequently 
the case, are proclaimed bastards, by the undeniable 
testimony given by the colour of their skin ; is she 
to do all this, and still put forward pretensions to 
the authority and the affection due to a mother I 
And, are you to permit all this, and still call yourself 
a father I 

310. Well, then, having resolved to teach your 
own children, or, to have them taught, at home, let 
us now see how they ought to proceed as to books 
for learning. It is evident, speaking of boys, that, 
at last, they must study the art, or science, that you 
intend them to pursue ; if they be to be surgeons, 
they must read books on surgery; and the like in 
other cases. But, there are certain elementary stu- 
dies ; certain books to be used by all persons, who 
are destined to acquire any book-learning at all. 
Then there are departments, or branches of know- 
ledge, that every man in the middle rank of life, 
ought, if he can, to acquire, they beings in some 
sort, necessary to his reputation as a well-informed 
man, a character to which the farmer and the shop- 
keeper ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and the 
surgeon. Let me now, then, offer my advice as to 
the course of reading, and the manner of reading, for 
a boy, arrived at his fourteenth year, that being, in 
my opinion, early enough for him to begin. 

311. And, first of all, whether as to boys or girls, 
I deprecate romances of every description. It is 
impossible that they can do any good, and they may 
do a great deal of harm. They excite passions that 
ought to lie dormant ; they give the mind a taste 



252 cobbstt's ADVICI [Letter 

for hiffhly-seasoned matter, they make matters ot 
real life insipid; every girl, addicted to them, sighs 
to be a Sophia Western, and every boy, a Tom 
Jones. What girl is not in love with the wild 

youth, and what boy does not find a justification for 

his wildness ? What can be more pernicious than 
the teachings of this celebrated romance - Hen 

are two young men put before us,, both sons of the 
smie mother; the one a bastard (and by «'i pai 
too), the other a legitimate child; the former wild, 

disobedient, and squandering ; the latter steady, 
sober, obedient, and frugal; the former every thing 

that is frank and generous in his nature, the latter 
a greedy hypocrite ; the former rewarded with the 
most beautiful and virtuous of women and a double 
estate, the latter punished by being made an outc 
How is it possible for young people to read such a 
book, and to look upon orderliness, sobriety, obe- 
dience, and frugality, as virtues? And this is the 
tenor of almost every romance, and of almost every 
play, in our language. In the " School ibr Scan- 
dal/' for instance, we see two brothers ; the one a 
prudent and frugal man, and, to all appearance, a 
moral man, the other a hair-brained squanderer, 
laughing at the morality of his brother; the former 
turns out to be a base hypocrite and seducer, and is 
brought to shame and disgrace; while the latter is 
found to be full of generous sentiment, and Heaven 
itself seems to interfere to give him fortune and 
fame. In short, the direct tendency of the far 
iter part of these books, is, to cause young 
people to despise all those virtues, without the 
practice of which they must be a curse to their pa- 
rents, a burden to the community, and must, except 
by mere accident, lead wretched live.-. I do not 
recollect one romance nor one play, in our langUS 
which has not this tendency. How is it possible for 



V.] TO A FATHER. 253 

young princes to read the historical plays of the 
punning and smutty Shakspeare, and not think, that 
to be drunkards, blackguards, the companions of 
debauchees and robbers, is the suitable beginning of 
a glorious reign ? 

312. There is, too, another most abominable prin- 
ciple that runs through them all, namely, that there 
is in high birth, something of svjperior nature, in- 
stinctive courage, honour, and talent. Who can 
look at the two royal youths in Cymbeline, or at 
the noble youth in Douglas, without detesting the 
base parasites who wrote those plays ? Here are 
youths, brought up by shepherds, never told of their 
origin, believing themselves the sons of these 
humble parents, but discovering,, when grown up, 
the highest notions of valour and honour, and thirst- 
ing for military renown, even while tending their 
reputed fathers' flocks and herds ? And why this 
species of falsehood? To cheat the mass of the 
people \ to keep them in abject subjection; to make 
them quietly submit to despotic sway. And the in- 
famous authors are guilty of the cheat, because they 
are, in one shape or another, paid by oppressors out 
of means squeezed from the people. A true picture 
would give us just the reverse ; would show us that 
" high birth" is the enemy of virtue, of valour, and 
of talent ; would show us, that with all their incalu- 
lable advantages, royal and noble families have, only 
by mere accident, produced a great man; that, in 
general, they have been amongst the most effemi- 
nate, unprincipled, cowardly, stupid, and, at the very 
least, amongst the most useless persons, consi- 
dered as individuals, and "not in connexion with the 
prerogatives and powers bestowed on them solely by 
the law. 

313. It is impossible for me, by any words that 
I can use, to express, to the extent of my thoughts, 



COBBE i i A.tN [< [Lti 

i ol suffering young people to form their 
rom the writings ol po< is and romai* 
ut of ten, the morality they trad, 

had, and must have a bad tendency. Their \\\- 
employed i«; ruUcule virtue, as you will almost alv 
find, if you examine llie matter to the bottom. The 
world owes a very large part of its sufferings to 
ranis; but what tyrant Was there amongst (lie an- 
cients, whom the poets did not pla xgst lh< 

Can you open an English poet, with' 
in some part or other of his works, finding the gro 
est flatteries of royal and noble persons? How are 
young people not to think that the praises bestowed 
on these persons are just? Dryden, Paknkll. 
Gay, Thompson, in short, what poet have we had, 
or have we, Pope only excepted, who was not, or is 
not, a pensioner, or a sinecure placeman, or the 
wretched dependent of some part of the Aristocrat 
Of the extent of the powers of writers in produ< a 
chief to a nation, we have two most striking in- 
rices in the eases of Dr. Johnson and dubi 
The former, at a time when it was a question whether 
war should be made on America to compel her to 
submit to be taxed by the English parliament, wr 

pamphlet, entitled, " Taxation no Tyranny?* to 

urge the nation into that war. The latter, when it 

a question, whether England should wage war 

the people oT France, to prevent them from 

their government, wrote a pamphlet to 

1 the nation into Uiul war. The first war lost us 

America, the last cost us six hundred millions of 

money, and lias loaded us with forty millions a year 

01' takes. Johnson, however, gut a pension ,, 

///r, and Burke a pension for his life, and for 
tln'i ftcr his oil-it ! Cumberland and Muu- 

rnv, the play-writers, were pensioners; and, in 
short, of the whole mass, where has there been one, 



V.] TO A FATHER. 255 

whom the people were not compelled to pay for la- 
bours,, having for their principal object the deceiving 
and enslaving of that same people ? It is, therefore., 
the duty of every father, when he puts a book into 
the hands of his son or daughter, to give the reader 
a true account of ivho and what the writer of the 
book was, or is. 

314. If a boy be intended for any particular call- 
ing, he ought, of course, to be induced to read books 
relating to that calling, if such books there be; 
and, therefore, I shall not be more particular on 
that head. But, there are certain things, that all 
men in the middle rank of life, ought to know some- 
thing of; because the knowledge will be a source of 
pleasure ; and because the want of it must, very fre- 
quently, give them pain, by making them appear in- 
ferior, in point of mind, to many who are, in fact, 
their inferiors in that respect. These things are 
grammar, arithmetic, history, accompanied with geo- 
graphy. Without these, a man, in the middle rank 
of life, however able he may be in his calling, makes 
but an awkward figure. Without grammar he can- 
not, with safety to his character as a well-informed 
man, put his thoughts upon paper ; nor can he be 
sure, that he is speaking with propriety. How many 
clever men have I known, full of natural talent, 
eloquent by nature, replete with every thing calculated 
to give them weight in society ; and yet having little 
or no weight, merely because unable to put correctly 
upon paper that which they have in their minds ! For 
me not to say, that I deem my English Grammar the 
best book for teaching this science, would be affecta- 
tion, and neglect of duty besides ; because I know, 
that it is the best ; because I wrote it for the pur- 
pose ; and because, hundreds and hundreds of men and 
women have told me, some verbally, and some by 
letter, that, though (many of them) at grammar- 



i i3D£in i o\ a I letter 

bools foi years, they really never knew any thing 
of grammar until they studied my book. I, who 
know well all the difficulties that I experienced when I 

read books upon this subject, can easily believe 
this, and especially when I think of t lie numerous in- 
stances in which I have seen wmVeraVy-scholars un- 
able to write English; with any tolerable degree "I 
correctness. In this book, the principles arc 
clearly explained, that the disgust arising from in- 
tricacy is avoided : and it is this disgust, that is the 
great and mortal enemy of acquiring knowledg 

315. With regard to arithmetic, it is a branch 
of learning absolutely necessary to every one, who 
has any pecuniary transactions beyond those arisi 
out of the expenditure of his week's wages. All the 
books on this subject that I had ever seen, wen 
bad, so destitute of every thing calculated to lead the 
mind into a knowledge of the matter, so void of 
principles, and so evidently tending to puzzle and 
disgust the learner, by their sententious, and crabbed, 
and quaint, and almost hieroglyphical definitions, 
that J. at one time, had the intention of writhe 
little work on the subject myself. It was put oil", 
from one cause or another; but a little work on the 
subject has been, partly at my suggestion, written 
and published by Mr. Thomas Smith of Liverpool, 
and is sold by Mr. SHERWOOD, in London. The 
author has great ability, and a perfect knowledge of 
his subject. It is a book of principles ; and any 
young person of common capacity, will learn more 
from it in a week, than from all the other books, that 
I ever saw on the subject, in a twelvemonth. 

316. AYhile the foregoing studies are proceeding, 
though thev very well afford a relief to each other, 
HISTORY may serve as a relaxation, particularly dur- 
ing the study of grammar, which is an undertaking 
requiring patience and time. Of all history, that of 



V.] TO A FATHER. 257 

our own country is of the most importance ; because, 
for want of a thorough knowledge of what has been, 
we are, in many cases, at a loss to account for ivhat 
is, and still more at a loss, to be able to show what 
ought to be. The difference between history and 
romance is this ; that that which is narrated in the 
latter, leaves in the mind nothing which it can 
apply to present or future circumstances and events ; 
while the former, when it is what it ought to be, 
leaves the mind stored with arguments for expe- 
rience, applicable, at all times, to the actual affairs 
of life. The history of a country ought to show 
the origin arid progress of its institutions, poli- 
tical, civil, and ecclesiastical ; it ought to show 
the effects of those institutions upon the state of 
the people; it ought to delineate the measures of 
the government at the several epochs ; and, hav- 
ing clearly described the state of the people at the 
several periods, it ought to show the cause of their 
freedom, good morals, and happiness ; or of their 
misery, immorality, and slavery; and this, too, by 
the production of indubitable facts, and of infer- 
ences so manifestly fair, as to leave not the smallest 
doubt upon the mind. 

317. Do the histories of England which we have, 
answer this description ? They are very little better 
than romances. Their contents are generally con- 
fined to narrations relating to battles, negotiations, 
intrigues, contests between rival sovereignties, rival 
nobles, and to the character of kings, queens, mis- 
tresses, bishops, ministers, and the like ; from 
scarcely any of which can the reader draw any 
knowledge which is at all applicable to the circum- 
stances of the present day. 

318. Besides this, there is the falsehood ; and the 
falsehoods contained in these histories, where shall we 
find any thing to surpass ? Let us take one in- 
stance. They all tell us, that William the Conqueror 



knocked down kwenty-six parish chuft t< and 
laid waste the parishes in order to make the N 
Fores! : and this in a tract of th poorest 

land in England, where the churches must then 

have stood at about one mile and two hundred 
yards front each oilier. The truth is, that all the 
churches are still standing that were there when 
William latlded, and (lie whole story is a s! 
falsehood from the beginning to the end. 

'. But, this is a mere specimen of these ro- 
mances ; and that, too, with regard to a matter 
comparatively unimportant to us. The important 
elioods are, those which misguide us by state- 
ment or by inference, with regard to the state 
the people at the several epochs, as pr by 

the institutions of the country, or the m 
of the Government. It is always the object of th 
who have power in their hands, to persuade the 
people that they are better oif than their fore- 
fathers were: it is the great business of history to 
show how this matter stands; and, with respect to 
this great matter, what are we to learn from any 
thing that has hitherto been called a history of Eng- 
land! I remember, that, about a dozen yi 

■>, I was talking with a very clever young man, 
who had read twice or thrice over the History of 
England, by different authors; and that I gave 
the conversation a (urn that drew from him, unj 
delved by himself, that he did not know how titi 
parishes, poor-rates, church-rates, and the abolition 
of trial by jury in hundreds of cases, came to be 
in England; and. that he had not the smallest idea 
of the manner in which the Duke of Bedford came 
to possess the power of (axing our Cabbages in 
Covent QaTden. Yet, this is history. I have done 
a great deal, with regard to matters of tins sort, in 
my famous History of the PROTESTAJfT Kki okma- 
tioxj for 1 may truly call that famous, which lias 



V.] TO A FATHER* 259 

been translated and published in all the modern lan- 
guages. 

320. But, it is reserved for me to write a com- 
plete history of the country from the earliest times 
to the present day ; and this, God giving me life 
and health, I shall begin to do in monthly numbers, 
beginning on the first of September, and in which I 
shall endeavour to combine brevity with clearness. 
We do not want to consume our time over a dozen 
pages about Edward the Third dancing at a ball, 
picking up a lady's garter, and making that garter 
the foundation of an order of knighthood, bearing 
the motto of " Honi soit qui mat y pense" It is not 
stuff like this ; but we want to know what was the 
state of the people ; what were a labourer's wages ; 
what were the prices of the food, and how the labourers 
were dressed in the reign of that great king. What 
is a young person to imbibe from a history of Eng- 
land, as it is called, like that of Goldsmith ? It is a 
little romance to amuse children ; and the other his- 
torians have given us larger romances to amuse lazy 
persons who are grown up. To destroy the effects 
of these, and to make the people know what their 
country has been, will be my object; and this, I 
trust, I shall effect. We are, it is said, to haye a 
History of England from Sir James Mackintosh; 
a History of Scotland from Sir Walter Scott ; 
and a History of Ireland from Tommy Moore, the 
luscious poet. A Scotch lawyer, who is a pensioner, 
and a member for Knaresborough, which is well 
known to the Duke of Devonshire, who has the 
great tithes of twenty parishes in Ireland, will, 
doubtless, write a most impartial History of Eng- 
land, and particularly as far as relates to boroughs 
and tithes. A Scotch romance-writer, who, under 
the name of Malagrowther, wrote a pamphlet to 
prove, that one-pound-notes were the cause of riches 



260 cobbjbct 's ADvin. [Letter 

to ScuiL uid, will wiik:, to be sure, ;i most instruct 
History of Scotland* And, from the pen of an Irish 
poet, who is a sinecure placeman; and a protege of 
an English peer that has immense parcels of Irish 
confiscated estates, what a beautiful history shall we 
not then have of wtfortunate Ireland 1 Ob, nu I We 

arc nut going to be content with 8tu£F such as these 

men will bring out. Hume and Smollett and Robert- 
son have cheated us lung enough. We are nut in a 
humour to be cheated any Longer. 

.»lM. Geography is taught at schools, if we be- 
lieve the school-cards. The scholars can tell you 
all about the divisions of the earth, and this is very 
well fur persons who have leisure to indulge their 
curiosity; but it does seem to me monstrous that a 
young person's lime should be spent in ascertaining 
the boundaries of Persia or China, knowing nothing 
all the while about the boundaries, the rivers, the 
soil, the products, or of the anything else of York- 
shire or Devonshire. The first thing in geography 
is to know that of the country in which we live, 
especially that in which we were born : 1 have 
now seen almost every hill and valley in it with 
my own eyes; nearly every city and every town, 
and no small part of the whole of the villages. I 
am therefore qualified to give an account of the 
country ; and that account, under the title of Geo- 
graphical Dictionary of England and Wales, I am 
now having printed as a companion to my history. 

.)l } 2. When a young man well understands the 
geography of his own country; when he has referred 
to maps on this smaller scale; when, in short, he 
knows all about his own country, and is able to 
apply his knowledge to useful purposes, he may 
look at other countries, and particularly at the 
the powers or measures of which arc likely to affect 
his own country. It is of great importance to us to 



V.] TO A FATHER. 261 

be well acquainted with the extent of France, the 
United States, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Turkey, and 
Russia; but what need we care about the tribes of 
Asia and Africa, the condition of which can affect 
us no more than we would be affected by anything 
that is passing in the moon ? 

323. When people have nothing useful to do, 
they may indulge their curiosity; but, merely to 
read books, is not to be industrious, is not to study, 
and is not the way to become learned. Perhaps 
there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, 
than your everlasting readers. A book is an ad- 
mirable excuse for sitting still ; and, a man who 
has constantly a newspaper, a magazine, a review, or 
some book or other in his hand, gets, at last, his 
head stuffed with such a jumble, that he knows not 
what to think about any thing. An empty cox- 
comb, that wastes his time in dressing, strutting, or 
strolling about, and picking his teeth, is certainly a 
most despicable creature, but scarcely less so than a 
mere reader of books, who is, generally, conceited, 
thinks himself wiser than other men, in proportion 
to the number of leaves that he has turned over. In 
short, a young man should bestow his time upon no 
book, the contents of which he cannot apply to some 
useful purpose. 

324. Books of travels, of biography, natural his- 
tory, and particularly such as relate to agriculture 
and horticulture, are all proper, when leisure is 
afforded for them ; and the two last are useful to a 
very great part of mankind ; but, unless the sub- 
jects treated of are of some interest to us in our 
affairs, no time should be wasted upon them, when 
there are so many duties demanded at our hands by 
our families and our country. A man may read 
books for ever, and be an ignorant creature at last, 
and even the more ignorant for his reading. 



ronnF.rrV advk Letter 

• . And, with regard to j omen, i 

in'- book-readie absolutely a woe. When thej 

once gel into the habit, they neglect all otl 
mattery and, in some ca n their reiy dress. 

AJ&ending to the afiairj of the house: to the wash- 

. the baking, the brewing, the preservation and 
cooking of victuals, the management of the poultry 
and the garden ; these are their proper occupatio 
li is said (with what truth 1 knoi ic pre 

' Queen (wife of William IV. j, that she w$s an 
active 1 , excellent manager of her liouse. Impossible 
to bestow on her greater praise; and I trust that her 
example will have its due effect on the young women 
of the present day, who stand, but too generally, 
need of that example. 

326. The great fault of tlie present generation, 
is, that, in all ranks, the notions of sc/J'-i/ajjortaacc 
arc too high. This has arisen from causes not visible 
to many, but the consequences are felt by all, and 
that, too, with great severity. There lias been a 

tend sublimating going on for many years. Not 
to put the word Esquire before tlie name of almost 
any man who is not a mere labourer or artizan, is 
almost an affront* Every merchant, every master- 
manufacturer, every dealer, if at all rich, is an 
Esquire ; squires 5 sons must be gentleman* and 
squires 3 wires and daughters ladies. If this were 
all; if it were merely a ridiculous misapplication of 
words, tlie evil would not be great ; but, unhappily, 
words lead to acts and produce thi nd the 

** young gentleman?* is not easily to be. moulded into 
a tradesman or a working farmer. And yet the world 
is too small to hold so many gentlemen and Ian", 
How many thousands ef young men have, at this 
moment, cause to lament that they are not carp- 

. or masons, of tailors, or shoemals ad how 

many thousands of those, thai they have been h< 



V.] TO A FATHER. 263 

up to wish to disguise their honest and useful, and 
therefore honourable, calling! Rousseau observes, 
that men are happy, first, in proportion to their 
virtue, and next, in proportion to their independence ; 
and that, of all mankind, the artizan, or craftsman, 
is the most independent; because he carries about, 
in his own hands and person, the means of gaining 
his livelihood ; and that the more common the use 
of the articles on which he works, the more perfect 
his independence. " Where/' says he, " there is 
" one man that stands in need of the talents of the 
a dentist, there are a hundred thousand that want 
c; those of the people who supply the matter for the 
ft teeth to work on ; and for one who wants a sonnet 
" to regale his fancy, there are a million clamouring 
# for men to make or mend their shoes." Aye, and 
this is the reason, why shoemakers are proverbially 
the most independent part of the people, and why 
they, in general, show more public spirit than any 
other men. He who lives by a pursuit, be it what 
it may, which does not require a considerable degree 
of bodily labour, must, from the nature of things, be, 
more or less, a dependent ; and this is, indeed, the 
price which he pays for his exemption from that 
bodily labour. He may arrive at riches or fame, 
or both; and this chance he sets against the certainty 
of independence in humbler life. There always 
have been, there always will be, and there always 
ought to be, some men to take this chance : but to 
do this has become the fashion, and a fashion it is 
the most fatal that ever seized upon a community. 

327. With regard to young women, too, to sing, 
to play on instruments of music, to draw, to speak 
French, and the like, are very agreeable qualifica- 
tions ; but why should they all be musicians, and 
painters, and linguists ? Why all of them ? Who, 
then, is there left to take care of the houses of 



264 COBBBTT^fl advki. [Loiter 

farmers and traders : But there is something in 
these "accomplishments" worse than this; namely, 
that they think themselves too high for fanners and 
traders: and this, in fact, they are ; much too high; 

and, therefore, the servant-girls step in and supply 
their place. If they could see their own interest, surely 

they would drop this lofty tone, and these lofty airs. 
Jt is, however, the fault of the parents, and particu- 
larly of the father, whose duty it is to prevent them 
from imbibing such notions, and to show them, that 
the greatest honour they ought to aspire to is, 
thorough skill and care in the economy of a house. 
We arc all apt to set too high a value on what we 
ourselves have done ; and I may do this ; but I do 
firmly believe, that to cure any young woman of this 
fatal sublimation, she has only patiently to read my 
Cottage Economy, written with an anxious desire 
to promote domestic skill and ability in that sex, on 
whom so much of the happiness of man must always 
depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that 
until she read COTTAGE Economy she had never 
hdked hi the house, and had seldom had (jood l>< 
that, ever since, she had looked after both herself; 
that the pleasure she had derived from it was equal 
to the profit, and that the latter was very great. 
She said, that the article " on bak'uuj bread" was 
the part that roused her to the undertaking ; and, 
indeed, if the facts and arguments, there made use of, 
failed to stir her up to action, she must have been 
Stone dead to the power of words. 

328. After the age that we have now been sup- 
posing, boys and girlfl become men and worn 
and, there now only remains for the father to act 
towards them with impartiality. If they be nu- 
merous, or, indeed, if they be only two in number, 
to expect perfect harmony t»> reign amongst, or 
between, them, is to be unreasonable; because ex- 



V.] TO A FATHER, 265 

perience shows us, that, even amongst the most 
sober, most virtuous, and most sensible, harmony 
so complete is very rare. By nature they are rivals 
for the affection and applause of the parents; in 
personal and mental endowments they become 
rivals ; and, when pecuniar}) interests come to be 
well understood and to have their weight, here is a 
rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, 
require more affection and greater disinterestedness 
than fall to the lot of one out of one hundred 
families. So many instances have I witnessed of 
good and amiable families living in harmony, till 
the hour arrived for dividing property amongst 
them, and then, all at once, becoming hostile to each 
other, tli at I have often thought that property, 
coming in such a way, was a curse, and that the 
parties would have been far better off, had the 
parent had merely a blessing to bequeath them from^ 
his or her lips, instead of a will for them to dispute 
and wrangle over. 

329. With regard to this matter, all that the 
father can do, is to be impartial ; but, impartiality 
does not mean positive equality in the distribution, 
but equality in proportion to the different deserts of 
the parties, their different wants, their different 
pecuniary circumstances, and different prospects in 
life ; and these vary so much, in different families, 
that it is impossible to lay down . any general rule 
upon the subject. But there is one fatal error, 
against which every father ought to guard his heart; 
and the kinder that heart is, the more necessary 
such guardianship. I mean the fatal error of 
heaping upon one child, to the prejudice of the 
rest ; or, upon a part of them. This partiality 
sometimes arises from mere caprice; sometimes 
from the circumstance of the favourite being more 
favoured by nature than the rest; sometimes from 



C0BBB1 i - IDVH [Lot lor 

the nearer resemblance to himself, that the father 

s in the favourite ; and. snmet iincs. from the hope 

ttf preventing the favoured party from doing thai 
which would disgrace the parent. All these motives 

are highly censurable, hut the last is the n 
general; and by far the most mischievous in its 
effect; How many fathers have been ruined; how 
many mothers and families brought to beggary, how 

many industrious and virtuous groups have been 

pulled down from competence to penury, from I 
desire to prevent one from bringing shame on the 

parent! So that, contrary to every principle of jus- 
tice, the bad is rewarded for the badness; audi he 
good punished for the goodness. Natural affection, 
remembrance of infantine endearments, reluctance 
to abandon long-cherished hopes, compassion for the 
sufferings of your own ilesh and blood, the dread 
of fatal consequences from your adhering to just i« 
all these beat at your heart, and call on you t 
way: but, you must resist them all : or, your ruin, 
and that of the rest of your family, are decreed. 
Buffering is the natural and just punishment of idle- 
ness, drunkenness, squandering, and an indulgence 
in the society of prostitutes ; and, never did I 
world behold an instance of an offender, in this way, 
reclaimed but by the infliction of this punishment ; 
particularly if the society of prostitutes made part 
of the offence; for, here is something that takes 
the heart from VOtf. Nobody ever yet saw, and 
nobody ever will see, a young man. linked to a 
prostitute, and retain, at the same time, any, even 
the smallest degree of alfection, for parents or 
brethren. You may supplicate, you may implore, 
you may leave yourself pennylcss. and your virtuous 
children without bread ; the invisible cormorant 
will still call for more ; and. as we saw, only the 
other day, a wretch was convicted of having, at the 



V,] TO A FATHER. 267 

instigation of his prostitute, beaten Ms aged mother, 
to get from her the small remains of the means 
necessary to provide her with food. In Heron's 
collection of God's judgments on wicked acts, it is 
related of an unnatural son, who fed his aged father 
upon orts and offal,- lodged him in a filthy and crazy 
garret, and clothed him in sackcloth., while he and 
his wife and children lived in luxury ; that, having 
bought sackcloth enough for two dresses for his 
father, his children took away the part not made 
up, and hid it, and that, upon asking them what 
they could do this for, they told him that they 
meant to keep it for him, when he should become 
old and walk with a stick ! This, the author relates, 
pierced his heart ; and, indeed, if this failed, he 
must have had the heart of a tiger; but even this 
would not succeed with the associate of a prostitute. 
When this vice, this love of the society of prosti- 
tutes ; when this vice has once got fast hold, vain 
are all your sacrifices, vain your prayers^ vain your 
hopes, vain your anxious desire to disguise the 
shame from the world ; and, if you have acted well 
your part, no part of that shame falls on you, un- 
less you have administered to the cause of it. Your 
authority has ceased ; the voice of the prostitute, or 
the charms of the bottle, or the rattle of the dice, has 
been more powerful than your advice and example : 
you must lament this : but, it is not to bow you 
down ; and, above all things, it is weak, and even 
criminally selfish, to sacrifice the rest of your family, 
in order to keep from the world the knowledge of 
that, which, if known, would, in your view of the 
matter, bring shame on yourself. 

330. Let me hope, however, that this is a cala- 
mity which will befall very few good fathers ; and 
that, of all such, the sober, industrious, and frugal 
habits of their children, their dutifulj demeanor, 

N 2 



2f>S ro brett's AD VICE. [Letter V. 

their truth and their integrity, will come, to smooth 

the path of their downward days, and be the objects 

on which their eyes will close. Those children 

must, in their turn, travel the same path ; and they 
may be assured, that, "Honour thy lather and thy 
mother, that thy days may be long in the land/* is 
a precept, a disregard of which never vet tailed, 
either first or last, to bring its punishment. And, 
what can be more just than that signal punishment 
should follow such a crime ; a crime directly against 
the voice of nature itself? Youth lias its passions. 
and due allowance justice will make for these ; but. 
are the delusions of the boozer, the gamester, or the 
harlot, to be pleaded in excuse for a disregard of the 
source of your existence ? Are those to be pleaded 
in apology for giving pain to the father who has 
toiled half a life-time in order to feed and clothe you, 
and to the mother whose breast has been to you the 
fountain of life ? Go, you, and shake the hand of 
the boon-companion; take the greedy harlot to your 
arms ; mock at the tears of your tender and anxious 
parents; and, when your purse is empty and your 
complexion faded, receive the poverty and the scorn 
due to your base ingratitude ! 



269 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE CITIZEN. 



331. Having now given my Advice to the 
Youth, the grown-up Man, the Lover, the Hus- 
band and the Father, I shall, in this concluding 
Number, tender my Advice to the Citizen, in which 
capacity every man has rights to enjoy and duties to 
perform, and these too of importance not inferior to 
those which belong to him, or are imposed upon him, 
as son, parent, husband or father. The word 
citizen, is not, in its application, confined to the 
mere inhabitants of cities : it means, a member of a 
civil society, or community ; and, in order to have a 
clear comprehension of man^s rights and duties in 
this capacity, we must take a look at the origin of 
civil communities. 

332. Time was when the inhabitants of this island, 
for instance, laid claim to all things in it, without 
the words owner or property being known. God 
had given to all the people all the land and all the 
trees, and every thing else, just as he has given the 
burrows and the grass to the rabbits, and the bushes 
and the berries to the birds ; and each man had the 
good things of this world in a greater or less de- 
gree in proportion to his skill, his strength and his 
valour. This is what is called living under the 
Law of Nature ; that is to say, the law of self- 
preservation and self-enjoyment, without any re- 
straint imposed by a regard for the good of our 
neighbours. 

333. In process of time, no matter from what 



270 [Letter 

;e, men made amongst themselves a compi 

tment, to divide the land and its products 

in such maimer that each should have a share to 

liis own exclusive use, and that each man should 
he protected in the exclusive enjoyment of his share 
by the united poire,- of I he rest ; and, in order to 
ensure the due and certain application of this united 
power, the whole of the people agreed to be bound 
by regulations, called Laws. Thui ivil 

society; thus arose property ; thus arose the word. 
• and thine. One man became po of 

more good things than another, because he was more 
industrious, more skilful, more careful, or more 
frugal : so that LABOUR^ of one sort or another, Mas 
the BASIS of all property. 

33 1. In what manner civil societies proceeded in 
providing for the making of laws and for the enforc- 
ing of them; the various ways in which they took 
measures to protect the weak against the strong ; 
how they have gone to work to secure wealth Bgail 
the attacks of poverty ; these are subjects that it 
would require volumes to detail: but these truths 
are written on the heart of man : that all men ire, 
by nature, equal; that civil society can never have 
arisen from any motive other than that of the benefit 
<>/ the whole ; that, whenever civil society mal 
the greater part of the people worse off than they 
were under the Law of Nature, the civil compact 
in conscience, dissolved, and all the rights of nature 
return: that, in civil society, the riffhi the 

duties go hand in hand, and that, when the former 
are taken away, the latter cease to exist. 

835. Now. then, in order to act well our part, as 
citizens, or members of the community, we ought 
clearly to understand what our rights are ; for, on our 
enjoyment of these depend our duties, rights 
before duties, as value received goes before payment. 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 271 

I know well, that just the contrary of this is taught 
in our political schools, where we are told that our 
first duly is to obey the laws ; and it is not many 
years ago, that Horsley, Bishop of Rochester, told 
us, that the people had nothing to do with the laws 
but to obey them. The truth is, however, that the 
citizens first duty is to maintain his rights, as it is 
the purchasers first duty to receive the thing for 
which he has contracted. 

336. Our rights in society are numerous ; the 
right of enjoying life and property ; the right of 
exerting our physical and mental powers in an inno- 
cent manner ; but, the great right of all, and without 
which there is, in fact, no right, is, the right of taking 
a part in the making of the laws by zvhich we are 
governed. This right is founded in that Law of 
Nature spoken of above ; it springs out of the very 
principle of civil society; for what compact, what 
agreement, what common assent, can possibly be 
imagined by which men would give up all the rights 
of nature, all the free enjoyment of their bodies and 
their minds, in order to subject themselves to rules 
and laws, in the making of which they should have 
nothing to say, and which should be enforced upon 
them without their assent ? The great right, there- 
fore, of every man, the right of rights, is the right of 
having a share in the making of the laws, to which 
the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit. 

337. With regard to the means of enabling every 
man to enjoy this share, they have been different, in 
different countries, and, in the same countries, at dif- 
ferent times. Generally it has beem. and in great 
communities it must be, by the choosing of a few to 
speak and act in behalf of the many : and, as there 
will hardly ever be perfect unanimity amongst men 
assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact and 
argument are to decide the question, the decision is 



cobbi i i a i»\ j< i. I Letter 

lefl to the majority^ the compact being that the dh 
sion of the majority shall be that erf the whole. 

Minors arc excluded from this right; because the law- 
considers them as infants, because it makes the 
parent answerable for civil damages committed by 
them, and because of their legal incapacity to make 
any compact. Women are excluded because hus- 
bands arc answerable in law for their wives, as to 
their civil damages, and because the very nature of 
their sex makes the exercise of this right incom- 
patible with the harmony and happiness of society. 
Men stained with indelible crimes are excluded, 
because they have forfeited their right by violating 
the laws, to which their assent has been given. 
In suae persons are excluded, because they are dead 
in the eye of the law, because the law demands no 
duty at their hands, because they cannot violate 
the law, because the law cannot affect them ; and, 
therefore, they ought to have no hand in making it. 
338- But, with these exceptions, where is the 
ground whereon to maintain that any man ought to 
be deprived of this right, which he derives directly 
from the Law of Nature, and which springs, as I 
said before, out of the same source with civil so- 
ciety itself: Am 1 toid, that property ought to con- 
fer this right ? Property sprang from labour, and 
not labour from property; so that if there were to 
be a distinction here, it ought to give the preferen 
to labour. All men are equal by nature; nobody 
denies that they all ought to be equal in thi the 

law; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law 
begin by suffering tome to enjoy this right and 
refusing the enjoyment to others? It is the duty of 
l vuv man to defend his country against an enemy, a 
duty imposed by the Law of Nature as well as by 
that of civil society, and without the recognition of 
this duly, there could exist no independent nation 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 273 

and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain 
that this is the duty of every man, if you deny to 
some men the enjoyment of a share in making the 
laws ? Upon what principle are you to contend for 
equality here, while you deny its existence as to the 
right of sharing in the making of the laws ? The 
poor man has a body and a soul as well as the rich 
man ; like the latter, he has parents, wife and 
children ; a bullet or a sword is as deadly to him as to 
the rich man ; there are hearts to ache and tears to 
flow r for him as well as for the squire or the lord or 
the loan-monger: yet, notwithstanding this equality, 
he is to risk all, and, if he escape, he is still to be 
denied an equality of rights ! If, in such a state of 
things, the artizan, or labourer, w r hen called out to 
fight in defence of his country, were to answer : 
" Why should I risk my life ? I have no possession 
■•' but my labour ; no enemy will take that from me; 
" you, the rich, possess all the land and all its pro- 
" ducts ; you make what laws you please without 
" my participation or assent ; you punish me at your 
" pleasure ; you say that my "want of property ex- 
" eludes me from the right of having a share in the 
" making of the laws ; you say that the property 
"that I have in my labour is nothing ivorth; on 
u what ground, then, do you call on me to risk my 
" life V If, in such a case, such questions were put, 
the answer is very difficult to be imagined. 

339. In cases of civil commotion, the matter comes 
still more home to us. On what ground is the rich 
man to call the artizan from his shop or the labourer 
from the field to join the sheriffs posse or the 
militia, if he refuse to the labourer and artizan the 
right of sharing in the making of the laws? Why 
are they to risk their lives here ? To uphold the 
laws, and to protect property. What ! laws, in the 
making of, or assenting to, which they have been al- 

n 5 



2f4 ( i • i . 1 1 1 i i • i d i i « [Lettei 

lowed to have no share) Property, of which t! 

said to possess nunc? What! compel men to 
come forth and risk their lives for the protection 
property; and then^ in the same breath, tell the 

that they arc not allowed to share iii the mak; 

of the laws, because, and ONLY BECAUSE, they 
hart- no property ! Not because they have com* 

mitled any crime ; not because they are idle 

profligate ; not because they are vicious In an) 
way : but solely because they hi proper t\ 

and yet, at the same time, compel them to conn 
forth and risk their lives for the protection 0/ property ' 
340. But, the paupers! Ought they to share 
in the making of the laws) And why not? Wl 
is a pauper; what is one of the men to whom tins 

degrading appellation is applied : A very / 

man ; a man who is, from some cause or Other, 
unable to supply himself with food and raiment 
without aid from the parish-rates. And, is that 
circumstance alone to deprive him of his right, a 
right of which he stands more in need than any 
other man ) Perhaps lie has, for many years of 
his life, contributed directly to those rates ; and 
ten thousand to one he has, by his labour, con- 
tributed to them indirectly. The aid which, under 
such circumstances, he receive his right : he 

receives it not as an alms: he is no mendicant ; 
lie begs not ; lie comes to receive that which the 
law of (lie country awards him in lieu of I 
larger portion assigned him by the I \ 

Pray mark that, and let it be deep] wit on 

your memory. The audacious and merciless Mal- 
thus (a parson of the church establishment) re- 
commended, some years the passing of a 
law to put an end to tl y of j>< 

though he recommended )U) law to put an end to 
the enormous taxes paid by poor people. In 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 275 

his book he said, that the poor should be left to 
the Law of Nature, which, in case of their having 
nothing to buy food with, doomed them to starve. 
They would ask nothing better than to be left to 
the Law of Nature ; that law which knows nothing 
about buying food or any thing else ; that law r which 
bids the hungry and the naked take food and rai- 
ment wherever they find it best and nearest at 
hand ; that law which awards all possessions to the 
strongest ; that law the operations of which would 
clear out the London meat-markets and the drapers 5 
and jewellers 5 shops in about half an hour : to this 
law the parson wished the Parliament to leave the 
poorest of the working people; but, if the Parlia- 
ment had done it, it would have been quickly seen, 
that this law was far from " dooming them to be 
" starved/ 5 

341. Trusting that it is unnecessary for me to 
express a hope, that barbarous thoughts like those 
of Malthus and his tribe will never be entertained 
by any young man who has read the previous 
Numbers of this work, let me return to my very, 
very poor man, and ask, whether it be consistent 
with justice, with humanity, with reason, to deprive 
a man of the most precious of his political rights, 
because, and only because, he has been, in a pecu- 
niary way, singularly unfortunate? The Scripture 
says, " Despise not the poor, because he is poor f J 
that is to say, despise him not on account of his 
'poverty. Why, then, deprive him of his right ; 
why put him out of the pale of the law, on account 
of his poverty ? There are some men, to be sure, 
who are reduced to poverty by their vices, by idle- 
ness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering ; but, 
the far greater part by bodily ailments, by misfor- 
tunes to the effects of which all men may, without 
any fault and even without any folly, be exposed : 



276 ( OBM i i . i-\ m i. I Lk 

and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unju 
wash to add to tlu i sufferings of such persons by 
(tripping them of their political rights? How many 
thousands of industrious and virtuous men have, 

within these few years, been brought down from a 
te of competence to that of pauperism! And, 
is it just to strip such men of their rights, merely 
because the} are thus brought down : When I 
was at Ely, last spring, there were, in that nei 
bourhood, three paupers cracking stones on the 
loads, who had all three been, not only rate-pay* 
but overseers of the poor, within seven years of the 
day when I was there. Is there any man so bar- 
barous as to say, that these men ought, merely on 
account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of theii 
political rights ? Their right to receive relief is 
perfect as any right of property; and, would you, 
merely because they claim this right, strip them of 
another right? To say no more of the injustice and 
the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense 
in this? What! if a farmer or a tradesman be, by 
ilood or by lire, so totally ruined as to be compelled, 
surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish- 
book^ would you break the last heart-string of such 
a man by making him feci the degrading loss of his 
political rights ? 

342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; 
e is //><• point on which you are to take your stand. 
There are always men enough to plead the caus< 
the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the 
fallen great ; but, be it your part to show compassion 
for those who labour, and to maintain their rights. 
Poverty is not a crime, and though it sometimes 
arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, to be 
Visited by punishment beyond that which it bril 
with itself. Remember, that poverty is decreed 
the very nature of man. The Scripture say^ &** 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 277 

" the poor shall never cease from out of the land;" 
that is to say, that there shall always be some very 
poor people. This is inevitable from the very na- 
ture of things. It is necessary to the existence of 
mankind, that a very large portion of every people 
should live by manual labour; and, as such labour is 
pain, more or less, and as no living creature likes 
pain, it must be, that the far greater part of labouring 
people will endure only just as much of this pain as 
is absolutely necessary to the supply of their daily 
ivants. Experience says that this has always been, 
and reason and nature tell us that this must always 
be. Therefore, when ailments, when losses, when 
untoward circumstances of any sort stop or diminish 
the daily supply, want comes ; and every just govern- 
ment will provide, from the general stock, the means 
to satisfy this want. 

343. Nor is the deepest poverty without its useful 
effects in society. To the practice of the virtues of 
abstinence, sobriety, care, frugality, industry, and 
even honesty and amiable manners and acquirement 
of talent, the two great motives are to get upwards 
in riches or fame, and to avoid going downivards to 
poverty y the last of which is the most powerful of the 
two. It is, therefore, not with contempt, but with 
compassion, that we should look on those, whose 
state is one of the decrees of Nature, from whose 
sad example we profit, and to whom, in return, we 
ought to make compensation by every indulgent and 
kind act in our power, and particularly by a defence 
of their rights. To those who labour, we, who la- 
bour not with our hands, owe all that we eat, drink, 
and wear ; all that shades us by day, and that shel- 
ters us by night; all the means of enjoying health 
and pleasure; and, therefore, if we possess talent for 
the task, we are ungrateful or cowardly, or both, if 
we omit any effort within our power to prevent them 



I OB*] i i | u>\ M | L, 

i m.j 11 being slave*; a ml, disguise the matter bow we ma) . 

a rml sl<u-<\ every man is, who lias no sfa 

iii making the laws which he is compelled to obey, 

3 1 1. ///</// m ^ .v/^rr ? For, lei us apt be amused 

\)\ a innnc ; but look Well into the matter. AsS 

ii the first place, a man who has no property; and 

ipeity means something that lie haSj and that 

nobody can take iVom him without his leave, Of 

consent. AYhatcver man, no matter what lie may 
call himseif Of anybody else may call him, can have 

his money or his goods taken from him byforce^ by 

virtue of an order, or ordinance, or law, which lie 
has had no hand in making, and to which he has not 
given his assent, has no property > and is merely a 
depositary of the goods or* his master. A slave has 
UO property in lux labour ; and any man who is com- 
pelled to give up the fruit of his labour to another, 
at the arbitrary will of that other, has no property in 
his labour, and is, thcrfore, a slave, whether the fruit 
of his labour be taken from him directly or indi- 
rectly. If it be said, that he gives up this fruit of his 
labour by his own will, and that it is not rem 

. 1 answer, To be sure he may avoid eating and 
drinking and may go naked; but, then he mu 
and on this condition, and this condition only, can 
he refuse to give up the fruit of his labour; •• Die, 
wretch, or surrender as much of your income, or the 
fruit of your labour as your masters choose to 
take. v This is, in fact, the language of the ruh 
to every man who is refused to have a share in the 
making of the laws to which h to submit. 

345« lint, some one may say, slaves are private 
/, and may be bought < \ out and oui. 

like catile. And, what is it to the slave, whether he 
be property of om or oi' many; or, what matu 
it to him, whether he pass from master to ma- 
by a sale for an indefinite term, or be let to hire by 



VL] TO A CITIZEN. 279 

the year, month, or week ? It is, in no case, the 
flesh and blood and bones that are sold, but the 
labour ; and, if you actually sell the labour of man, 
is not that man a slave, though you sell it for only a 
short time at once ? And, as to the principle, so 
ostentatiously displayed in the case of the black 
slave-trade, that " man ought not to have a property 
in man ;'* it is even an advantage to the slave to be 
private property, because the owner has then a clear 
and powerful interest in the preservation of his life, 
health and strength, and will, therefore, furnish him 
amply with the food and raiment necessary for these 
ends. Every one knows, that public property is never 
so well taken care of as private property ; and this, too, 
on the maxim, that " that which is every body's busi- 
ness is nobody's business." Every one knows that a 
rented farm is not so well kept in heart, as a farm in 
the hands of the oivner. And, as to punishments and 
restraints, what difference is there, whether these be 
inflicted and imposed by a private owner, or his 
overseer, or by the agents and overseers of a body 
of proprietors ? In short, if you can cause a man 
to be imprisoned or whipped if he do not work 
enough to please you ; if you can sell him by auction 
for a time limited ; if you can forcibly separate him 
from his wife to prevent their having children ; if 
you can shut him up in his dwelling-place when you 
please, and for as long a time as you please ; if you 
can force him to draw a cart or waggon like a beast 
of draught; if you can, when the humour seizes you, 
and at the suggestion of your mere fears, or whim, 
cause him to be shut up in a dungeon during your 
pleasure : if you can, at your pleasure, do these things 
to him, is it not to be impudently hypocritical to 
affect to call him a free-man? But, after all, the&e 
may all be wanting, and yet the man may be a slave, 
if he be allowed to have no property ; and, as I have 



0OBBBT1 ADVICE 

shown, no property he can haw, nut even in that 
labour, which is not only property, but the basis oi 
all other property, unless he have a share in making 
the laws to which he is compelled to submit. 

346. Jt is said, that he niav have this sli. 

tin/lit/, though not in form and name ; for that his 
employers may hare such share, and they will, I 

matter of course, OCtfor //////. This doctrine, pushed 
home, would make the chief of the nation the sole 
maker of the laws; for if the rich can thus act for 
the poor, why should not the chief act for the rich ? 
This matter is very completely explained by the 
practice in the UNITED States of Amkki 
There the maxim is., that every free man. with the 
exception of men stained with crime and men in- 
sane, has a right to have a voieK3 in choosing th- 
who make the laws. The number of Representa- 
tives sent to the Congress is, in each State, propor- 
tioned to the number of free people. But, as tin 
are slaves in some of the States, these States fat* 
ain portion of additional members an account 
those slaves f Thus the slaves are repr I by 

their owners; and this is real, practical, open and 
undisguised virtual representation ! Xo doubt that 
white men mav be represented in the same way; 
for the colour of the skin is nothing; but let them 
l)e called slaves, then : let it not be pretended that 
they are free nan: let not the word liberty be pol- 
luted by being applied to their state: let ii be 
openly and honestly avowed as in America, that 
they are stares: and then will come the question 
whether men ought to exist in such a state, or 
whether they ought to do everything in their power 
to rescue themselves from it. 

347- If the right to have a share in making the 
laws were merely a leather; if it were a fanciful 
thing; if it were only a speculative theory; if it 



VL] TO A CITIZEN. 281 

were but an abstract principle ; on any of these sup- 
positions, it might be considered as of little import- 
ance. But it is none of these ; it is a practical 
matter ; the want of it not only is, but must of 
necessity be, felt by every man who lives under that 
want. If it were proposed to the shopkeepers in a 
town^ that a rich man or two, living in the neigh- 
bourhood, should have power to send, whenever they 
pleased, and take away as much as they pleased of 
the money of the shopkeepers, and apply it to what 
uses they please ; what an outcry the shopkeepers 
would make ! And yet, what would this be more 
than taxes imposed on those who have no voice in 
choosing the persons who impose them ? Who lets 
another man put his hand into his purse when he 
pleases ? Who, that has the power to help himself, 
surrenders his goods or his money to the will of ano- 
ther ? Has it not always been, and must it not 
always be, true, that, if your property be at the 
absolute disposal of others, your ruin is certain ? 
And if this be, of necessity, the case amongst indi- 
viduals and parts of the community, it must be the 
case with regard to the whole community. 

348. Aye, and experience shows us that it always 
has been the case. The natural and inevitable con- 
sequences of a want of this right in the people have, 
in all countries, been taxes pressing the industrious 
and laborious to the earth ; severe laivs and standing 
armies to compel the people to submit to those 
taxes ; wealth, luxury, and splendour, amongst those 
who make the laws and receive the taxes ; poverty, 
misery, immorality and crime, amongst those who 
bear the burdens ; and at last commotion, revolt, 
revenge, and rivers of blood. Such have always 
been, and such must always be, the consequences 
of a want of this right of all men to share in the 
making of the laws, a right, as I have before shown, 



C0BB1 it ADVN [Lt 

derived immediately from the Law oi Natv 
springing up out of the same source with civil 
iiety, and cherished in the heart of man by reason 
and by experience. 

349, Well, then, this right being that, without 
(he enjoyment of which there is, in reality, no right 
at all, how manifestly is it the first duty of ev< 
man to do all in his power to 'maintain this right 
where it exists, and to restore it where it lias been 
Lost -. For observe, it must, at one time, bare 
isted in every civil community, it being impossible 
that it could ever be excluded by any social com- 
pact ; absolutely impossible, because it is contrary 
to the law of self-preservation to believe, that men 
would -agree to give up the rights of nature without 
stipulating for some benefit. Before we can ailect 
to believe that this right was not reserved, m such 
compact, as completely as the right to live was re- 
served, we must affect to believe, that millions of 
men, under no control but that of their own } 
sinus and desires, and having all the earth and its 
products at the command of their strength and skill, 
consented to be for ever, they and their pos terity, 
the stares of a few. 

350. We cannot believe this, and therefore, with- 
out going back into history and precedents^ we must 
believe, that, in whatever civil community this right 
does not exist, it has been lost, or rather nnjnsttij 
taken, away* And then, having seen the terrible 
evils which always have arisen, and always must 
arise, from the want of it ; being convinced that, 
where lost or taken awav by force or fraud, it is 
our very first duty to do all in our power to restore 
it, the next consideration is, lane ought one to act 
in the discharge of this most sacred duty ; for 
sacred it is, even as the duties of husband and 
father. For, besides the baseness of the thought of 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN, 283 

quietly submitting to be a slave oneself, we have 
here, besides our duty to the community, a duty to 
perform towards our children and our children's 
children. We all acknowledge that it is our boun- 
den duty to provide, as far as our power wall go, for 
the competence, the health and the good character 
of our children ; but, is this duty superior to that 
of which I am now speaking ? What is compe- 
tence, what is health, if the possessor be a slave, 
and hold his possessions at the w r ill of another, or 
others ; as he must do if destitute of the right to a 
share in the making of the laws ? What is compe- 
tence, what is health, if both can, at any moment, 
be snatched away by the grasp or the dungeon of a 
master ; and his master he is who makes the laws 
without his participation or assent ? And, as to 
character, as to fair fame, when the white slave 
puts forward pretensions to those, let him no longer 
affect to commiserate the state of his sleek and fat 
bretHren in Barbadoes and Jamaica ; let him hasten 
to mix the hair with the wool, to blend the white 
with the black, and to lose the memory of his origin 
amidst a dingy generation. 

351. Such, then, being the nature of the duty, 
how are we to go to work in the performance of it, 
and what are our means ? With regard to these, so 
various are the circumstances, so endless the differ- 
ences in the states of society, and so many are the 
cases when it would be madness to attempt that 
which it would be prudence to attempt in others, 
that no general rule can be given beyond this ; that, 
the right and the duty being clear to our minds, the 
means that are surest and swiftest are the best. In 
every such case, however, the great and predominant 
desire ought to be not to employ any means beyond 
those of reason and persuasion, as long as the em- 
ployment of these afford a ground for rational expec- 



2 - 1 cobbett's advh [Letter 

tation of success. Men are, in such a case, labour- 
ing, nol for the present day only, but for ages to 
come; and therefore they should not slacken in their 
exertions, because the grave may close 14)011 them 
before the day of final triumph arrive. Amongst the 
virtues of the good Citizen are those of fortitude and 
patience ; and, when he lias to carry on his struggle 
against corruptions deep and widely-rooted, lie is noi 
to expect the baleful tree to come down at B 
blow ; he must patiently remove the earth that 
props and feeds it, and sever the accursed roots one 
by one. 

352. Impatience here is a very bad sign. I do not 
like your patriots, who, because the tree does nof 
•jive way at once, fall to blaming all about them, 
accuse their fellow-suiferers of cowardice, because 
they do not do that which they themselves dare not 
think of doing. Such conduct argues chagrin and 
disappointment ; and these argue a seljixk feeling : 
they argue, that there has been more of private am- 
bition and gain at work than of public good* Such 
blamers, such general accusers, are always to be 
suspected. A\ nat docs the real patriot want more 
than to feel conscious that he lias done his duty 
towards his country ; and that, if life should not 
allow him time to sec his endeavours crowned with 

in cess, his children will see it ? The impatient 
patriots are like the young men (mentioned in the 
beautiful fable of La Fontaine) who ridiculed the 
man of fourscore., who was planting an avenue of 
very small trees, which, they told him, that he never 
could expect to see as high as his head. u Well,' 3 
said he, "and what of that? If their shade afford me 
"110 pleasure, it may afford pleasure to my children, 
"and even to you; and, therefore, the planting of 
" [hem gives me pleasure. w 

353. It is the want of the noble disinterestedness, 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 285 

so beautifully expressed in this fable, that produces 
the impatient patriots. They wish very well to their 
country, because they want some of the good for 
themselves. Very natural that all men should wish 
to see the good arrive, and wish to share in it too ; 
but, we must look on the dark side of nature to find 
the disposition to cast blame on the whole commu- 
nity because our wishes are not instantly accom- 
plished, and especially to cast blame on others for 
not doing that which we ourselves dare not attempt. 
There is, however, a sort of patriot a great deal worse 
than this ; he, who having failed himself, would see 
his country enslaved for ever, rather than see its de- 
liverance achieved by others. His failure has, per- 
haps, arisen solely from his want of talent, or discre- 
tion; yet his selfish heart would wish his country 
sunk in everlasting degradation, lest his inefficiency 
for the task should be established by the success of 
others. A very hateful character, certainly, but, I 
am sorry to say, by no means rare. Envy, always 
associated with meanness of soul, always detest- 
able, is never so detestable as when it shows itself 
here. 

354. Be it your care, my young friend (and I 
tender you this as my parting advice), if you find 
this base and baleful passion, which the poet calls 
'-the eldest born of hell ;" if you find it creeping 
into your heart, be it your care to banish it at once 
and for ever; for, if once it nestle there, farewell 
to all the good which nature has enabled you to do, 
and to your peace into the bargain. It has pleased 
God to make an unequal distribution of talent, of 
industry, of perseverance, of a capacity to labour, 
of all the qualities that give men distinction. We 
have not been our own makers: it is no fault in you 
that nature has placed him above you, and, surely, 
it is no fault in him j and would you pvmsh him on 



286 coBBYrr'fl at)vk [Letter 

RCCOCint, and only Oil account, of his pre-eminence 1 
If you have read this book you will startle with h 

roratthe thoughts you will, as to public matt 

act with zeal and with good humour, though the 
place you occupy be far removed from the first ; 

vou will support with the best of your abilities 
others, who, from whatever circumstance, may hap- 
pen to take the lead; you will not suffer frotn the 

consciousness and the certainty of your own supe- 
rior talents to urge you to do anything which might 

by possibility be injurious to your country's can 
you will be forbearing under the aggressions of i 

norance, conceit, arrogance, and even the black, 
of ingratitude superadded, if by resenting these you 
endanger the general good; and, above all thin 
you will have the justice to hear in mind, that thai 
country which gave you birth, is, to the last hour of 
your capability, entitled to your exertions in her he- 
half, and that you ought not, by acts of commission 
or of omission, to visit upon her the wrongs which 
may have been inflicted on you by the envy and 
malice of individuals. Love of one's native soil is 
a feeling which nature has implanted in the human 
breast, mid that has always been peculiarly str< 
in the breasts of Englishmen. God has given us a 
country of which to be proud, and that freedom, 
greatness and renown, which were handed down to 
us by our wise and brave forefathers, bid us perish 
to the last mam rather than sutler the land of their 
graves to become a land of slavery, impotence and 
dishonour. 

355. In the words with which 1 concluded my 

English Grammar, which I addressed to my son 

.lames, 1 conclude my advice to you. "With En- 

c - glish and French on your tongue and in your pen. 

OU have a resource, nol only greatly valuable in 

u itself, but; a resource that vou can be deprived of 



VI.] TO A CITIZEN. 287 

Ci by none of those changes and chances which de- 
u prive men of pecuniary possessions, and which 5 in 
" some cases, make the purse-proud man of yester- 
" day a crawling sycophant to-day. Health, without 
" which life is not worth having, you will hardly fail 
" to secure by early rising, exercise, sobriety, and 
" abstemiousness as to food. Happiness, or misery, 
€c is in the mind. It is the mind that lives ; and the 
" length of life ought to be measured by the number 
" and importance of our ideas, and not by the 
" number of our days. Never, therefore, esteem 
Qi men merely on account of their riches, or their 
" station. Respect goodness, find it where you may. 
" Honour talent wherever you behold it unasso- 
cc ciated with vice ; but honour it most when accom- 
" panied with exertion, and especially when exerted 
" in the cause of truth and justice ; and, above all 
€e things, hold it in honour, when it steps forward to 
" protect defenceless innocence against the attacks 
" of powerful guilt." These words, addressed to 
my own son, I now, in taking my leave, address to 
you. Be just, be industrious, be sober, and be 
happy; and the hope that these effects will, in some 
degree, have been caused by this little work, will add 
to the happiness of 

Your friend and humble servant, 

Wm. cobbett. 

Kensington, 25th Aug., 1830. 



THE END, 



G. peirce ; printer, 310, STRAND, 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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